


Blood, Sweat, and Steel

by kisupure, Reuven



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Play, Angst and Romance, BDSM, Battle Scenes, Biting, Bruises, Consensual Kink, Consensual Violence, Daddy Kink, Dark Past, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Ensemble Cast, Eventual Romance, Extremely Dubious Consent, Financial Domination, Gang Violence, Giant Robots, Guns, Heavy BDSM, Hospitalization, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Machine Vore, Macro/Micro, Masochism, Mecha, Mechaphilia, Military Backstory, Military Kink, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Manipulation, Mind Sex, Murder, Murder Husbands, Murder Kink, Near Future, Neurology & Neuroscience, Non-Consensual Violence, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Orgasm Control, Partial Mind Control, Police, Robot Kink, Robots, Roleplay, Roleplay Logs, Sadism, Serious Injuries, Size Difference, Size Kink, Training, Vore, Weapons, Weapons Kink, World War III, and when its not done properly there are consequences, ignoring the EXTREME EDGEPLAY this is actually still BDSM done mostly properly, only major things are tagged for otherwise this list would be ridiculous, the truly fucked-up shit will not be tagged because of spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-02-08 05:19:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 32
Words: 300,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12857613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisupure/pseuds/kisupure, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reuven/pseuds/Reuven
Summary: "In neurospace, nobody can hear you scream."---Chris is fresh out of Chicago's police academy with an implant in the back of his neck designed for linking up with AI. Hawker is a 15-foot, 6-ton decommissioned piece of military equipment brought stateside after the nuclear holocaust of the Siberian War. Nobody was expecting Hawker to do anything but beat the living daylights out of every recruit who tried for compatibility with him, what with losing his previous pilot and best friend to a horrific gang fight 4 months before - but Chris finds himself, somehow, approved for training with the HLX-9 Vanguard unit. But the two have dark pasts and things to prove, and everyone at Chicago's 42nd precinct contends with the nagging feeling that Officer Chris Celn will either wind up out the door one of these days, or worse: in a body bag.This is the story of a twink pilot and his giant, metal, Kevlar Daddy and how they save the world, one post-WW3 Chicago at a time.---Think 'Appleseed' meets 'Titanfall' meets 'Pacific Rim' meets 'The Secretary'.Thanks Reuven for the fantastic RP <3





	1. Welcome to 42

**Author's Note:**

> So this all is a ROLEPLAY. With that in mind:
> 
> \- The first several chapters were completely improvised with zero pre-planning. After that we started doing a lot more behind-the-scenes work.  
> \- The only edits I've made are for consistency with character names, dates, places, that sort of thing. Spelling is largely left as-is.  
> \- While plot is the driving force of the story, the sex scenes are still super long. Which is just how we like them. Those chapters are marked with asterisks for, uh... easy reference.  
> \- Pacing may feel wonky from the reader's perspective, though we do our best to condense scenes and timeskip where appropriate. Remember, it takes us weeks to write what it took you minutes to read!
> 
> This is also written by a pair of kinky fucks. With THAT in mind:
> 
> \- What you see in the tags are the primary themes in the story and sex scenes. That covers 90% of it. The other 10% is other stuff, like the occasional het encounter, or cuddling, or some complex Jungian character concept that I'd just really rather not dedicate an entire tag to. I also don't want to give the whole damn thing away, spoilers included. So if you have a major squick or trigger, I would stay away because I can't guarantee it won't come up in SOME form, even if it's just an unsexy plot point or character moment.
> 
> So if you like mech-on-human action, sadism, heavy D/s, violence, control freaks, lots of colorful characters, and are willing to trust us not to waste hours of your life, then keep on reading. <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where the characters meet each other for the first time.

September 5, 2058.

Chicago. Southeast, Precinct 42.

10:45 AM.

Eight fresh rookies finished filling out paperwork, their new uniforms clean and pressed. Two women, six men. The leather on their belts hadn’t broken in yet, their boots shines under the fluorescent lightings. Not one was older then 25.

8 new scabs.

Not the kindest term, but what else do you call someone with a new implant at the back of the next, where the flesh met metal, and the edges are rough and raw. They body would adapt, but for now the surgery meant that they were wearing bandages and trying not to touch the the newest part of their bodies. They talk and joke about what’s coming up. Nervousness, rookie nerves.

And they should be. 42 Isn’t a good place to be a cop. Even in the station, bulletproof vests are a common sight. Mechs are on duty in a two block radius at all times. 42 isn’t a place you ask for, it’s a place you end up.

Scabs didn’t have it as bad as the others, maybe that’s why they got some shit from the locals. It’s easier to sleep at night when you know a few tons of mechanised armor would be around you tomorrow. Scabs tended to make it to pension. Scabs could get out of 42.  
—————————————  
Sergeant Kole walked into the room. Six seven, solid like brick wall. He loomed over the new scabs. Kids half his age. What the hell were they doing here? He knew, he’d read their paperwork.  
“Well, as I’m sure none of you are eager to stay in 42; I have good news. We’ve got just 4 mechanised units without pilots. Two threaded cruisers, which means you get to spend the day playing bus driver. An ariel drone, which means you get to stay in a pod at the station.” He pauses, noting that the kids are looking happier. They should, not bad shifts at all.

“And a maximum-sized single-pilot SWAT mech with full AI.”

Ah, that got the look he’d wanted. He let a half smile pull up the left corner of his mouth.

“Which of course, means you lot get to go through an integration.” That got groans. Of course it would.  
—————————-

Kole new a few things about the good man he’d lost when the Mech had taken that hit. You didn’t get to his position without spending time with your best. When 42 had lost it’s heaviest hitter, things had gotten worse. Four months it had been now. That was an eternity for an AI. One month of repairs. Three more mourning. Yesterday, it’d said it was ready.

Kole had 8 rookies ready the next day.  
—————————-

Chris knew 42 better then the others. He’d spent time in here when he was younger. Anyone who grew up in this armpit of Chicago spent time in 42. Either as a victim, or having done a crime. Chris’d turned by the end. Spilled the beans on his gang.

That’d gotten him a reward, a ticket out. He took it. Now he had a GED, he’d gone through the Police Academy. And he is back. He watched as the technician clean up the black vinyl chair that housed a remote interface. Somewhere close by, down in the motorpool, is a large mech in a docking bay. It’d turned down the first three in less then a minute each. THe next two had lasted longer. Now it was almost lunchtime, and Chris is going to have to get his AI cherry popped.

Not that he hadn’t interfaced before, but that was with training computers. Calm machines on courses, patient and well experienced AI that dealt with rookies every day. Not with an older, experienced partner. Not with an AI that might hate his guts. THat’s what the chair was for. To prevent the kind of feedback that’d fry your brain. You did NOT hook into an AI that didn’t want you. That was a good way to end up drooling in an asylum the rest of your life.

Sitting down, shuffling to get comfortable, Chris nodded to the tech. “I’m good. Let’s see what he thinks of me.”

The interface plates connected. Chris saw green lines, markers to indicate proper connectivity.

“You’re into the chair. You ready?” confirmed the Tech.

Chris swallowed. “Yes. Link us up.”

He felt like a pit had opened under him, the borning room in the station fell away as the machine pushed it’s awareness onto his own..

 

* * *

 

Up on his slab in the docking bay stood a formidable HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker: fifteen feet and six tons of bunker-busting, mortar-slinging machinery.  _The Long, Metal Arm of the Law_  they called him around here. It was a hard-earned title, believe it or not.

The mech, who everyone just called Hawker, vented a short gust of air from the rear manifold outlets underneath his scapular plates, shifting his feet a little on the slab out of irritation rather than fatigue. His face, a glossy white against an immense body of matte black, scowled vaguely as he waited for the next recruit. He didn’t want to be here, but he needed to be here.

—

Consciousness surged into him, clawing and biting. For a full 38 seconds he couldn’t see, hear, or detect much of anything around him – his sensors came online sluggishly, and it was all he could do to keep from lashing out to make his software boot faster.

At last Hawker was able to see the engineers standing nearby, a safe distance away, as he looked at them almost accusingly.

“Where is Davidson?” he rumbled haggardly, his vocal unit still throwing error codes.

They all looked at each other anxiously.

“Where’s  _Lee_?” He rarely said his pilot’s first name around others out of sheer respect – but in the cockpit, they spoke freely together. And right now, his cockpit was eerily empty.

“He…” Chief engineer Colburn looked away toward the monitors, as through their logarithmic readouts and lines of tiny code would help. “He was in a coma, Hawker. His son made the decision this morning.”

The giant mech just laid there on his side, heavy cables dripping out from the back of his head like a tuft of freakish hair. He balled his hand into a tight fist, emotion threatening to overcome him. The humans, so goddamn tiny, took a few more steps away, though none of them would dare try to take him offline now.

When one of the screens exploded in a shower of sparks and burnt plastic, however, a few of ran screaming.

“Hawker, I’m sorry,” Colburn offered, unfazed at the outburst; there was genuine sadness in her eyes, though. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

—

 _Next,_  he sent to the computer terminal in the processing room. It would appear as a little blip of a word on the screen, belying the intensity of what the poor scab was about to experience. For the mech, it would be nothing. The equivalent to delivering an unexpected punch to the gut and seeing if he had the wits to block it. Most rooks didn’t.

The kid’s file was modestly promising, but then, so were they all. The scabs were here for a reason just like anyone else – do a job, get paid. Hawker was never going to find another Lee Davidson, he knew that much.

“Hurry up so I can get back to being relegated to patrols,” the mech muttered to himself.

A few seconds later, the connection was open and priming. He counted down from 5, and like that, a whole other world suddenly ballooned into his foreprocessors.

Hawker didn’t pause to feel around – he ‘circled’ the kid’s mind once, quickly, and delivered a electro-neurological jab of meaningless information of just the right load and frequency to make most humans unseasonably uncomfortable. There was no form here – just noise, thought, sensation, and Hawker was designed to have one foot in that world at all times. This kid – this Chris Celn – wasn’t. It wasn’t even a matter of finding out if they could, either. That was the academy’s job. What Hawker was here to do was see if Chris knew how to  _duck_.

 

* * *

 

Hawker.

He at least had a name for the AI now, it’d flashed to him right before everything went dark. This wasn’t like being with those training AIs. Nor was it like when his wetware had had the lowest operating software installed by the surgical staff.

He is alone with a tiger.

The -PRESENCE- of the AI dominated his awareness. He blinked, then closed his eyes. No good looking when your optical processing was being re-directed. It read him, he could feel it measuring his mind. It make a slow circle around him, as if it’s oversized footsteps were reverberating around him in the chair. Then Chris wasn’t sitting anymore. He was on his feet, in darkness. Danger is close.

His childhood all over again. The hairs on the nape of his neck perked at the sensation of exertion. The pulling back before a blow. He didn’t know much about coding, many of those lessons were resting in the mechanical databanks in his mind.  
Years of instinct from growing up on the streets kicked in, he pushed back from the blow; his boots squeaking into the floor as he crouched. Something grazed his arm, like getting clipped by a passing truck. That was too close. Would there be more?

His hands went for his sidearm and flashlight. Nothing. He didn’t have his equipment here. His fingers flexed and he swallowed. Coming up on his haunches so he could spring away, he tried to ‘face’ the threat he couldn’t see. Until it wanted to , the AI could be as elusive as it wanted.

 

* * *

 

 _Oh?_  he thought, though deeper than their current connection. Deeper – further – than he would permit the kid to hear. For now.  _Well this is interesting._

Human minds fascinated him more than he cared to admit. They were messy, tangled things, seething with blood and iron and lipids. Though the scab felt small here – no, he  _projected_  ‘small’ – their awarenesses were comparable in complexity. Hawker’s ‘mind’, his software, was a bit more elegant, a bit quicker with numbers, and he was capable of seeing out of many eyes. Or, as the case may be here, none at all.

Celn’s reaction intrigued him… did it really feel right?

_Let’s try this…_

A hand – a worm connection, really – shot out to grab the kid by his face – his densest cluster of conscious thoughts. It was a basic psy-hack technique, but if Celn could recognize the danger here and react accordingly, then… well, Hawker would have to see if he could manage it first.

The scab’s presence here, so close to him, so small and quick, was thrilling. It’d been months, and those other candidates had been such spectacular disappointments. But here… Hawker was already getting the sense that something had the potential to resonate.

 

* * *

 

Chris’s mouth pulled down into a frown. In the simulated interface, there usually was a background. Sometimes it was an open field. Sometimes the inside of a warehouse. Usually it was a comfortable living room. This is just a dark alley. There’s almost nothing to see. He can feel a ‘wall’ behind him, and he knows there’s another not too far off. There’s some ground under his feet and a sense of open above.

Hawker is large, bordering on huge. There’s no question about how the AI presented itself. As if the moon had crept over the top of the buildings that made up this alley, Chris could ‘see’ the highlights of a truly oversized mech. Shoulders broaders then he stood tall shifted, a hand opening up, fingers splayed wide, to grasp… him?

-fuck THAT!-

The human wore his duty uniform in this mental simulation, brass buttons glinting in the moonlight. It shouldn’t be possible for something that big to be so fast. He knew that if he let that impact hit him, he’d be brained up against the brick wall behind him.

The kid ducked down, letting the gravity in the simulated environment pull him down. Arms over his head, he tucked into a crouch as he ‘felt’ the mechanised brute smash into the bricks. Digital debris fell onto him, his forearms felt like the robot’s palm hand bruised and scraped his flesh.

It wasn’t that the kid thought of himself as small either, he looked too small to be wearing the uniform. Like some teenager on halloween. Chris thought of himself as a teen still. Perhaps it was the danger, the menace and control the AI had in this digital realm. Reminding him of life when safety meant sleeping near your mates. Chris had survived on the streets by not taking hits. And he felt like he really, really wasn’t welcome here.

Putting his right hand down, he pushed up and launched to the left. All the AI had done was act aggressively toward him. It didn’t say hello, but neither had he. As he did his best to put the robot ‘behind’ him by getting on his feet to sprint, Chris called out in the simulation, his lips in the real world moving slightly.

“Okay! You don’t like me Hawker, I get it!”

 

* * *

 

The kid was catching on quick. Much quicker than the rest of his ‘graduating class’. But he was scared – Hawker could feel, even over their rather superficial connection, his adrenaline pumping, his chest heaving, and… was that sweat on the nape of his neck?

_“Okay! You don’t like me Hawker, I get it!”_

A setting familiar to the human had come into being at his nudging though the AI knew how to co-create in this space just as well as any meat intelligence. It gave the kid a place to run  _to_  in order to run  _from_  him. It was the mental distance he was wanting to put between them.

Hawker stopped his volley of assaults and held still, taking a moment to check himself. He’d put a half dozen other scabs through the ringer already – what was he trying to prove here? That none of them were Lee? Of course they weren’t.  _You were built to be a professional,_  he scolded himself with a scowl.  _Start acting like one._

The mech let their environment fully realize, and he took a tentative step toward the rook, revealing himself in the dim light.

 _“You’re being too goddamn hard on them,”_  the neural bridge operator had flatly noted after the third candidate was sent from processing with his nose gushing blood.  _“You wanna get back out in the field or what?”_

Hawker’s projection vented air in time with his real self down in the hangar.

“You’re a damn good scab,” he said finally, almond-shaped yellow optics glinting, tiny concentric rings of lenses behind them shifting as they studied his form. The kid was shapely, strong. Just what he needed. “But only time will tell if you’ve got what it takes to pilot a Vanguard-class HLX in this precinct. To pilot  _me_. Now come on downstairs,” Hawker said, trying to sound approving with that deep, commanding voice, “so I can welcome you to this hellhole in person.”

 

* * *

 

In the virtual environment creation, there were three involved. Chris, Hawker and the technician. The tech’s job is to make sure Chris didn’t end up on a slab. Aside from that the human and the AI had free reign. Chris got about six firm footplants into his spring before he ran into a chain-link fence. It spanned the alleyway, go up, far to high for him to climb. The black and white nature of the environment began to color, both his skin,t he metal of the fence, the blue of his uniform. He turned slowly, hearing the machine draw close.

A singular light came on above, making a pool of illumination over the kid. He was in full flight mode, and already he was gauging if he thought he could get around or under the AI’s presence. Then it came into the light as well.

“Holy.. fuck!” he uttered, having to look UP to meet those yellow optics.

The mech towered over him, nearly three times his height. Armor. Antennas. Weapons. Fists like wrecking balls. Feet that could punt a squad car with ease. As it loomed, intimidating jets of pressurised air and steam ejected from it.

Chris’s eyes are open wide, as he stared at it, having no place to run. The AI could reach all over the alley, how he’d avoided it until now he had no idea. It’d been toying with him, like a cat with a mouse. Then it spoke.

The words came out strong. There is no question that Hawker is utterly military, both and design and mentality. Chris felt like a new boot. Fresh off the bus, having the drill sergeant growling at him. Except that the words are complimentary.

There is only one thing he could say to Hawker as Chris came to attention and nodded with an obediant. “Yes, Sir.”

—————————————–[end of line]

With a soft mechanical whirr, the chair disconnected. Chris twitched as motor control returned to his body. He sat upright fast, boots hitting the floor as he sucked in a great gout of air. Sweat soaked through his back, his hands shook as he leaned forward. The tech handed him a bucket, and the scab coughed up his breakfast into it. After he’d had time to recover, the technician provided a few paper towels as well.

“Officer Celn.” rolled out Kole’s firm voice. The man had a big smile on his face. He’d expected Hawker to chew through rookies for weeks. Getting one on the first day? Better then he could have possibly hoped. The kid got on his unsteady feet and nodded, drinking from a bottle of water as he followed the big human. “So, for the next few weeks you and Hawker are going to get to know each other. That means you train with him,” he handed Chris more paperwork. “Sign where I’ve highlighted. A couple each page.”

The elevator doors opened, they got on and it wasn’t until they closed that Kole spoke up again. Quieter, subtle for a big man. “He outranks you Chris. You’ll spend every waking moment training, socializing and preforming repairs on Hawker. You’ll be sleeping in his gantry bay. I need him on the streets like he never left. Understand?”

Chris’s head is swimming, he’s just finishing the high of the encounter, knowing that Hawker is top-spec military Mech. CURRENT! Current tech Mech. Hawker’s model is still well in use on the military’s front lines. Hawker likely is the biggest dog in 42, and Chris was the key to getting that force of nature back out where it belonged. “Yes. I get you sir. I won’t let you down.”

As the elevator doors opened, Kole took the paperwork and gestured down the busy open space that is the motor pool. “It’s not me you need to prove yourself to. Hop to it scabber.” He pushed a button and the doors closed.

Chris walked down the side of the room, watching his step and trying to keep the water down. He is full of nerves after that. And he’s getting looks. Curious, judgemental looks. They knew he hadn’t flunked out. And they had known Hawker’s previous Pilot. Chris had some impossibly big boots to fill. Hawker’s alcove had a translucent plastic barrier, those long strips from the 20 foot ceiling.

As he stepped in, Chris could only stare. This wasn’t just a niche, this is like someone stuffed half of an apartment in the motor pool. And dominating the space is the 15 foot tall,(not counting antennas) form of Hawker. Three times Chris’s Height. Male. Imposing.

Chris stool up straight. Saluted before offering his hand to shake. “Hello again, Captain Hawker. Office Celn reporting for duty.”

 

* * *

 

Hawker left just before the tech ended their connection, returning to his body.

Visual net offline, he felt around his own hands. Big, black appendages, as wide as a man was shoulder to shoulder. In a grip, they could exert just over 500 foot-pounds of pressure. In a full-wound punch, septuple that amount.

He onlined his visuals, and noted that the motorpool’s technicians, whom he’d sensed as vague radar blips of warmth and EMS otherwise, were looking at him now. Wondering. When his optics flickered on, they hurriedly went back to their jobs – none of them dared say anything to him unless he spoke first.

Hawker’s cold detachment wasn’t a persona, it was who he was, down to his last line of code. Few people had the honor of seeing anything else. And one of them was dead now. The mech had no intention of getting that close to a pilot again.

—

The door on the far wall, past the row of 8-wheeled MRAVs, shunted open. Kole remained in shadow on the other side, but Hawker knew that salt-and-pepper hair and ugly smile from a literal mile away. He nodded his subtle acknowledgement and the door shut itself.

Lit harshly from above, Hawker knew he looked like some kind of bastardized Catholic icon, tucked back into his ‘parking spot’ like that. Chris just added to the irony of it all as he approached with something that pass as religious reverence, taking careful, measured steps. The mech wondered what Kole told him on the ride down.

A weak klaxon sounded only once as Hawker disengaged himself from the slab – more a vertically-oriented berth where he could hook himself up to the precinct’s systems – warning others that the giant was about to be mobile. Planes of plexi, edged in caution striping, separated into six and folded away as he stepped out onto the concrete and tread plate floor.

_Boom._

The techs, he realized with faint bemusement, had made themselves scarce.

_“Hello again, Captain Hawker. Officer Celn reporting for duty.”_

Hawker tilted his head as he looked down at his new pilot, barely taller than knee-height. Just like their shared simulation. Except, as always… different.

The kid flinched when he took a step closer and folded his big arms around his broad chest. “Don’t ask me for a handshake, greenhorn, unless you don’t want a hand left afterward.” He wanted to laugh at the kid’s reaction, but he knew just what his hands were capable of. With that, he turned, beckoning with a quick gesture for the human on his little legs to follow.

“I may be your superior, and I may be your partner,” he went on, striding over to a twenty-foot door and ordering it open with a wireless ping. Inside was his domain, his place for police-work: massive screens along one wall, and 42’s computer servers on the other. Leading up to the bank of controls was a small lift for human personnel. “But I am also your  _equipment._ ” He stopped at the computer screens and pulled up a slideshow of his own design specifications, engineering schematics, and a dozen potential loadouts.

Hawker turned back to Chris. “And you need to trust me exactly as far as my operating limitations allow.” Bitterness crept into his voice now. “Because if I fail critically, you’re going down too.

“Now. My job: protect this city, protect you, protect myself, and in that order. Understand? Good. I know that Kole probably gave you the rundown already, but here it is again: we will be training for the next several weeks together, and we will be training hard, because Lead Dawn knows that 42 is compromised without me out on the street.

“ _Your_  job: Know me. Know every  _inch_  of me. Know what I can and can’t do, what I haven’t seen, what I haven’t considered. We need to be seamless, but not so seamless that we can’t check each other.”

Hawker eyed Chris on the platform as he stood there, trying to look tall and squared. Chest-high –  _cockpit_  high. (Something in him twitched at that.)

“Your file says you’ve got experience with 42,” he said, leaning against the console and threading his thick fingers together as he finally handed over some room for the rook to speak. “Care to elaborate?”

 

* * *

 

Chris had no idea that Hawker would be so intelligent. And he didn’t mean books smart, he meant lifelike. It is hard for him to believe that the big mech didn’t have a pilot and this was a joke at his expense. He lowered the offered hand, letting it rest at his side as the mech talked. The voice is loud and big and fit the mech perfectly; right down to it’s deep, naturally authoritative resonance. Chris looked sheepish at not getting a shake from his new direct superior. He’ll have to offer a to fist bump next time.

The young scab had a high body temperature and is sweating. Aftereffects of the virtual encounter. Not that the motor pool was a cool place, all those engines and not enough ventilation to keep the concrete pit cool. It’s a blessing in the winter, curse in the summer. The massive machine took a single step, moving it’s mass with ease. While there’s no way to mask that much weight, the steps did not reverberate like explosions. They did seem to ripple the floor though. Chris had to run to keep up with the robot’s casual walk.

As Hawker talked, half of the people around could overhear with ease. Anyone else definitely knew the mega-mech was rumbling about something. Chris noticed something in his run, aside from the heat pushing out of the big mech. There was a smile. A look of appreciation from the others in the motor pool. Not at him though. At Hawker. Respect for the boss.

Chris wanted that. He wanted that kind of appreciation. He decided right here and now to do whatever it took, to have that kind of respect.

Chris panted as he rode the small elevator up, the yellow metal and wire bars of the cage looking like they’d taken a beating over the years. It was unlikely any other mech was big enough to use this space. ALL of this is for Hawker. And now him. He didn’t interrupt, he  _listened_. Attentively.

Chris finished the bottle of water and held it in his hands, wiping his brow with his sleeve before speaking up. “It was about 5 years… no… that’s not right.” He looked down, which put his gaze at the armored cockpit in the mech’s chest before getting his full story right in his head.

“I grew up with the Reds. They were a gang that used to run from Red Park and down two streets. Drugs, petty theft. Survival. I did try to make it through highschool. Actually made it to tenth grade before I dropped out.” he rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “Stupid decision. They kick you out of the public housing if you’re under 18 and not in school. So I just did what I had been. Cutting up anyone who looked like they might have something I wanted. Paying into the gang. Being a good bitch and getting high on whatever we could score.”

His shoulders drooped a bit. “That was four years ago, 2054. Eight years after the nukes went off overseas? One of the coldest winters on record? The year with no summer? I was cold. Fucking freezing. Cold enough to start getting desperate.” Right foot drags on the gantry’s grated floor. “That winter, the police got their first real mechs. The big winter cleanup. I didn’t know it, but that hobo with a thermos of hot something? And the nice coat? Yeah. SWAT guy on stakeout for a bust. He saw me too. Some little street rat, cold and hungry enough to have been stupid. Stupid enough to be thinking about I could get my hands on anything warm. He had me come over and  _shared._ ”

Chris took a deep breath in and let it out through his teeth. “I can’t expect you to understand what it’s like to slowly die; knowing that you aren’t gonna live. That nothing out there gives a shit about you, down to the people who you thought were your mates. All that graft I made? Suddenly no one remembered what I brought in. So I told him. Everything. What the Reds did. How he could find the Reds. More importantly, what we did for the Silver Suns and the stuff we moved through the sewers for the Triads.”

Chris’s eyes are red, ashamed at those memories. He pinches his nose, breathing again. Trying not to cry. “They brought me to 42. This place was a haven. Fed me, had me play stool pigeon. The Reds disappeared. Silver Suns and Triad lost big, even had some of their fronts go down. So I got told. Then they gave me a ticket out. I got a GED. When to community college. Got an AA in Criminal Justice. I wanted to help. Wanted to help other dumbasses like I had been. I had the right biology to become a scab.”

He leaned back on the handrail, sighing. He wiped his face then crossed his arms. “So yeah. I have a history with 42.”

 

* * *

 

He hadn’t been expecting the kid to spill like that – he didn’t seem the type – but something about the kid being capable of emotional vulnerability, something about his body heat and raised heart rate, touched an electronic nerve. His expectations shot up a little: a  _compliment_  from Big, Tall and Grumpy, as the commissioner called him.

“I remember the Triads,” he rumbled, recalling the raid on their headquarters in Fifth City that resulted in four killed and nine arrests. The organization effectively crumbled after that. “Their schtick was cutting off your thumb and little finger as a first warning.” Hawker nodded and vented a gust of air. “Glad you’re off the street.” Then: “There’s a lot of us here who got their start underground,” the mech said, maybe trying to reassure him for some reason. “Even me, apparently. I volunteered to have my memory cores wiped at some point in ’50. Woke up here.”

Hawker was an ex-military mech, used in black-ops specialized assaults back in the Siberian Wars – tip of the spear shit. Everything he knew of that old life, aside from his name, serial number, and English-speaking abilities, was second-hand, though. The rest was  _TOP SECRET: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY_. Not that any of it mattered; organized crime was the biggest threat these days anyways. He was in the right place. Thinking about his past would be nothing more than a…

…Distraction, huh?

 

* * *

 

Chris takes a little time to set himself back into an emotionally stable state. Deep breaths, stay strong, be strong. He closed his eyes and wiped his nose with thump and forefingers as he listened to the strong voice. Hawker’s rumped filled the chamber, all around the monitors and weapons looked ready. Hawker is ready. Chris isn’t.

“Three finger Tony found out that the hard way. Tried to keep some of a brick. Didn’t know the triads weighed the stuff on both ends.” he throat-clears, gazing up at Hawker’s faceplate. “Yeah. Glad I am too. I’d bet if there was a reasonable way out, about a third of everyone on the streets would go do something honest. But .. well, there just isn’t.”

When the robot talks about it’s own memory. Chris looks surprised. “Man, I’d love to do that. Just keep the experience, the reactions, turn off the pain of the past.” He thinks for a moment.

“Well, seeing as how we’ve got to train and I’m the ignorant one; what do you recommend? Where should I start?”

 

* * *

 

_“Man, I’d love to do that. Just keep the experience, the reactions, turn off the pain of the past.”_

Hawker vented, said nothing. His uncannily human ways of speaking and moving usually caught new-comers off-guard; all told he was a rare AI, though there were others like him out there. St. Louis, Los Angeles, Seattle – those were the kinds of cities that required more than a mech with a sophisticated computer. A mech who couldn’t just locate an armed target in a crowd, but wonder  _if_  it should fire at all.

_“Where should I start?”_

“For your probation period, you’ll be living on-premises. To your name you’ll get a room with a bunk – the rest is communal.” Hawker pulled up a few files on the computer and sent them to the terminal located in Celn’s suite. “You’ve got homework,” he continued in that deep voice like the lazy rumbles of an idling V8. “It’ll be waiting for you upstairs.” He turned back to the human on the platform though, optics on him again, and cocked his head to the side a little. “For now, I recommend some R&R because we’re going to hit the ground running. Starting with tomorrow. You’re going to meet me in the firing range at 0500 where you’ll -” he tapped at his chest here “- be trying me on for size.”

 

* * *

 

Chris hadn’t survived this long by being the biggest or the strongest. He’d lived to be a cop by choosing which Alpha to support. He’d chosen the Reds over this school. Not the best of decisions, but he’d been smart enough to dump the Reds for the police; recognising who had the might to enforce their rules. Hawker fit into that position, the strong one. The one Chris naturally would want to look up to.

A combat AI can be far superior to a human. However, the wars being fought are human versus human. Humans complain when robots kill without a ‘man on the button.’ So there needs to be a pilot. The pilot’s presence comforts generals and politicians.

As Hawker spoke and gestured, Chris felt calm. He’d need to get a chance. He needed the AI to accept him a a recruit. It had clearly laid down where their professional boundaries would be, and it hadn’t accepted him as a bunkmate in it’s personal alcove. But he now had a chance. He’d prove himself, no matter what it cost him personally. Even it it meant letting the 15 foot, multi-ton mech firm stomp his ego under it’s monster feet.

As Hawker tapped his chest, Chris felt his nerves spike. Talking with the mech is fine. But going inside? Experience that mental interface directly, sealed up where the machine could literally turn him into a meat puppet?

R&R? More like, good luck sleeping.

Hawker spoke and gestured like a human, and it had no problems using it’s voice and size to enforce the authority it possessed.  _Over me._ Chris thought to himself.

“Yes sir. Homework and report at 0500.” Sensing he is dismissed, (he did marvel at Hawker’s ability to give off such an impression.) Chris made his way to leave. Grasping the empty water bottle, Chris rode the gantry lift down to the floor. From there he walked out of Hawker’s office/armory. It was only after he had his back to his new partner that he let the grin span across his face; feeling the elation of the AI’s approval fill him.

 

* * *

 

The mech turned his face toward the screens as Celn left, but his sensors followed the rook out until the heavy, leaded doors closed, blocking the visibility of these other “eyes”. He pulled up some case data, recent news reports. The big machine didn’t need to do it this way; he could have just downloaded them and mulled them over on-board. But he was getting piloted again. He considered it a matter of etiquette to do things in the open for his human partner.

But Hawker was getting distracted. He could feel the heat from the thorium in his reactor core burning, he could feel the surge of his liquid cooling systems woven throughout his chassis. He could hear the dull thrum of his own internals, the faint sounds of his joints as they responded to the slightest changes in his stance. He could feel the emptiness of his cockpit.

The last person in there had been a tech before he woke up. The last person he  _remembered_  being in there was Lee, just as he had blown the hatch open – literally; an emergency mechanism powered by explosive charges – to make a last stand as Hawker succumbed to an agonizing EMP attack.

For all his hard aloofness, Hawker was still a mech – still a pilotable machine, designed to work with the guiding hand of a human. And though he’d never admit it to anyone, being without a pilot felt  _wrong_. Being without someone small and fragile to partner with, to protect, to physically  _house_ , was wrong. To be alone was wrong. Incorrect. Did not compute.

Hawker realized that his hands had balled into fists, and he released them with a harsh vent of hot air.

Part of him was eager to feel Chris strap himself in, but part of him wasn’t sure if the kid could handle it. Most of him, though, was indifferent. It was too soon to tell. He’d passed the first neurospace test, reacting impressively to the mech’s wordless assault, but working  _together_  was another matter.

—

At 0445, Hawker roused from hibernation and headed for the range. Simulations had their place, but he preferred the real thing where weapons were concerned. He pulled a heavy rifle from its rack on the wall – eight feet long and a little over 900 pounds, made sure it was in good working order, and loaded it with a magazine.

His internal clock read 0458 when he was done, and he hoped that Celn wouldn’t be late. Hawker had little patience for tardiness.


	2. Hit the Ground Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris experiences the first day of the rest of his life.

Chris rode up the elevator in silence. It dawned on him as he pressed the button for the personnel level that he didn’t even know where he’d be bunking. Well, the room or dorm space anyway.

*Ding!* chimed the elevator. The doors lazily slid open at the main level. Two techs and Chief Engineer Colburn walked in with him and wasted no time. “Arms out, legs spread scab!” The woman commanded, a startled Chris responded as the techs scanned and took measurements of his body. “So, you think Hawker took a liking to you?” she asked, messing with a dataslate. Her jumpsuit had permanent grime and enough tools to disable a squad car in the back pockets.

“I don’t think he likes anyone.” Chris offered.

Colburn nodded up and down in assent, “He tolerates you. We need him out on the streets. You want to be a pilot. We all can get what we want.” she smiled then, noting that Chris is the shortest in the elevator. He might not be the shortest in Precinct 42 but.. he’d be in the bottom 5 for sure. “We’ll have a proper pilot suit modified by this evening, make sure it fits. If Hawker doesn’t reject you, then we’ll modify the rest for duty rotation.”

The doors opened on the personnel level. “Room 7c. Get reading.” she gestured, one of the techs patting Chris’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt ya. We’re all together here.”

Chris sat down in the small space that was 7c. A room with a closet, a desk with a chair, and a bunk bed overtop the desk. Dorm rooms are downright spacious compared to this. He ran a hand through his short hair, woke up the computer and got to work. ‘Vanguard-class HLX, combat superiority. Basic operations. Welcome trainee Celn. Please attach the neural link and enter rest mode for data transfer.’ Chris dusted off the old-style connect, placed it on the connective plate.

Time..  
goes..  
by..  
so..  
slowly..

————————————-

He was laying on the bed, dizzy from two downloads. He held out his hands as if they were on joysticks, fingers and thumps working the controls for Hawker as he went over the basics. *KNOCK KNOCK!*

Chief Engineer Colburn had a military spec pilot suit on a hanger. The name patch had Celn. The torso, arms and legs had obvious seams where it’d been shortened and narrowed to fit him. Tough rubber joints. THe inside littered with biosensors. There was a crotch and butt hatch as well. Closed at the moment. Colburn shook her head as Chris reached for the suit. “You go in this nude. Hawker can keep you inside for over a week with onboard supplies. Longer if resupplied. Eventually you need a shave and your nails trimmed..” she shrugged. At least she turned her head as Chris got naked and slid into the form fitting outfit. “Not bad. Move your arms. Walk for me. Hmm. Have to make some adjustments. Hawker’s booked the range for 0500. I’ll be by at 0430 to give you this back.”

Chris pulled on his underwear, then most of his clothes. “Thanks Chief. Should I know anything about him?” THe woman considered for a moment, then shook her head negative. “Let him tell you. If he tells you.”

Dinner. Unpacking his things. Alarm set for 0420. He didn’t fall asleep until past midnight.

———————————-  
By 0450, Chris’d eaten, showered and slid into the suit again. It clung like a weighted second skin. As he walked, Colburn went beside him, testing the sensors responses. “Hmm. We’ll need to calibrate the suit for your biometrics. Some of the sensors aren’t optimally placed. But, it’ll work for now.” She stopped outside of the range’s door, and looked down at the nervous rookie. “You can do it scabber. Go on.”

0501, Chris pushed open the range’s door and headed for Hawker. The massive mech holding a rifle with a barrel Chis might fit inside.

 

* * *

 

“Late,” the giant mech grunted, raising a brow plate at the human’s entry, but otherwise not moving a servo. Just as Celn’s face began to show the fainted indignant surprise at Hawker’s verdict, he continued. “I’ll let it slide  _this_  time, but only because it looks like Colburn and the pit crew held you up.” He moved, hefting the rifle to rest against the wall behind him. A thick whirring of moving parts hidden behind black plates of armor; joints, worn down to the sheen of bare metal, exposed only where they could afford to be.

With a flexing of cybernetic muscle, the hollow of his cockpit thrummed to life and he opened up with a quick succession of hisses and clicks. His chest and midsection unfolded in four thick slabs: the biggest one upwards, the smaller three splayed open like harsh flower petals, arranged to make it easier for the pilot to board from most angles. Though Hawker didn’t breathe, he surmised that this was close to it: the stale, weeks-old air inside of him rushed out, to be replaced with new. It was invigorating.

“You should know,” the mech said, ignoring the look on the scab’s face as he stared up at that yawning metal gullet, aglow inside with rows of switches and status lights. “That I’m equipped with a 2-million-point haptic engagement system.” A brief pause. “That means I can feel  _everything_  you do, greenhorn.”

 

* * *

 

Chris scowled slightly at being told he is late. True, one of the clocks on the wall did indicate he is a minute past the scheduled starting time, but he still didn’t like hearing the fact. Already the pilot suit gave off readings, wirelessly transmitting information toward the large mech about the scab’s status. Healthy and nervous, seem to be the consenso of the data. Nervousness increases the the bot opens up.

“Yes sir. I’ll try to be on time from now on.” is that a little bit of a smirk on his face? Maybe.

The greenhorn knew from his data downloads that the robot had a pilot compartment. But unlike a car or a helicopter, that place isn’t obvious. To use anatomical terms, the pecs opened up with the hinge at the collar bone, the abs parted sideways and the stomach opened down. No windows. Lights everywhere. Hundreds of buttons and switches. Screens of information. There’s a mask with enough wires and hoses to provide life support in an ER. There pilot’s ‘chair’ looks comfortable, and Chris could see numerous restrains that would automatically hold him steady.

Hawker’s cockpit is probably the safest place on Earth. And a prison if the Mech wanted it to be.

“Everything? So, if I’m getting queasy? Tired? Angry? You’d know?” he isn’t sure how far that extends but.. he reviews his information from yesterday. Once inside, there’s no secrets from Hawker. THe mech WILL know everything about it’s new prospective pilot.

Chris exhaled deeply, approaching at stopping at the Mech’s left side.

“Permission to board, sir.” At least he’s smart enough to ask, instead of just jumping at the open invitation. If the mech acknowledges, he’ll climb aboard..

 

* * *

 

_“Everything? So, if I’m getting queasy? Tired? Angry? You’d know?”_

Hawker said nothing, just let his bright yellow optics give the faintest knowing flash as he let it sink in that there would be no such thing as privacy for the human anymore. It was the price of being a scab. The mech, of course, had no such luxuries either, but he was rarely the least bit bothered by it. Hooked up to a network, the edges of the electronic self blurred, and what the hell was Cartesian dualism anyway? Solitude co-mingled with collectivity at any given moment. And besides, it wasn’t like his fluids were considered obscene.

While he had full sensation inside and out, pain sensors were only integrated into his dermal armor. If his cockpit were compromised, it would be more difficult to sabotage him that way.

Celn approached, looking so small beside his foot, gazing up in equal parts awe, determination, skepticism, and respect.

_“Permission to board, sir.”_

It was a little formal, but it would do. The kid was certainly trying. “Granted.”

With a whine of machinery, hand and footholds, previously recessed into the side of his leg and thigh, emerged. The kid looked up at him again, and Hawker could feel his little pulse now, his brainwaves, his core and surface temperatures. Knowing those inputs, on top of seeing the look on the rook’s face, was as good as being clairvoyant:  _You’re kidding, right?_  he seemed to be saying.

 _Yes,_  Hawker retorted in his own CPUs.  _I’m going to make you **climb**_. Of course, he had to be careful – shielding his own thoughts once the kid was properly hooked up would be difficult. He’d have to save his admittedly  _salty_  inner commentary like this for those few moments of disengagement here soon enough, though there was nothing he’d be able to do about the general bleed-over of emotions. Not that he had anything to hide…

“I’ll pick you up when I feel you’ve earned it,” he said with a subtle smugness as Celn began to scale the mech’s leg.

 

* * *

 

Back when he’d been seriously considering becoming a scab, Chris had had some long talks with psychologists. Ones who were scabbers as well. What’d actually pushed him over the edge into accepting the implants had been a lecture in the early days. The rest had been almost a formality. <When you’re in an AI vehicle, you share mindspace. Yes, you can have private thoughts. But you have to mask them. Otherwise there are no secrets. Nothing that can compromise the trust between the new gestalt mind. You mentally fill in space for the other. One partner can dominate the interface, which is why testing is so important. As the human in the partnership, you are responsible for ethics, morality, and guidance. The AI is for the operation, the targeting, the movement. Together you choose to move. The AI chooses where to move. Your job is to make sure it doesn’t step on anything innocent.>

As he wondered how is supposed to clamber up the mech’s legs, the handholds emerged giving him a purchase. He didn’t say it, but the expression on his face is ‘Really?’

 _ **“I’ll pick you up when I feel you’ve earned it.”**_  that voice! Chris never wanted to hear it in anger. Or at the worst, in anger directed at him.

He unclenched his tight stomach and exhaled. ‘Be good.’ he thought to himself. Hawker had already picked him, it was only natural to put on a show like this before allowing anyone to get close. ‘And you don’t get anything, no recompense for putting up with the AI?” his bruised ego echoed within. ‘I get him. This is about sharing.’ are the last private thoughts he’s about to have for a few hours.

He’d been climbing up, and when his booted foot stepped onto the lowest part of the hatch, he already felt like he is too far up to be joking around. Falling down from this height onto the concrete floor would hurt a lot. The cabin’s air felt pleasant, the humidity perfect. Chris sat down in the seat, the knowledge from his homework coming to mind. He flicked the switches and buttons to adjust it to his height and size. The Padded restraints curled his lower half, securing him to the Mech. He reached up, grasping the mask and bringing down over his face.

Tubes and wires added to the mix of sensors that transmitted data as the automatic belting clasped the mask to his face. Just beyond his lips sat a number of oral probes, each able to deliver air, food and medication. Via intubation if needed.

Over his shoulders and along his ribs, metallic padded clamps moved in and grasped him; ensuring that he would not jostle loose in the most vigorous movement. The twin-joysticks lifted up and came to rests at his hands. He took a deep breath and held it.

“Initiating Mind Machine Interface.” He pressed the large orange button, and he felt movement behind his head. The interface moved up and solidly connected to the back of his neck. On each side of his neck, on each side of his head, and on top of his head, like a large hand, the interface grasped his skull.

It uncannily felt as if Hawker had just palmed him like a NBA player palms a basketball.

 

* * *

 

Hands on him, grasping.

It was strange, being properly boarded again for the first time in so long. But it was good. Correct. Needed to be done.

Celn’s weight was nothing on him as he climbed up the eight or so feet to the cockpit and swung inside. Hands, feet, a small body – on, about,  _in_. The kid took a seat, and Hawker could feel his sit bones through the suit. His boots on the meager decking, then on the foot controls. The mech vented hot air, holding still as the kid – now, officially, his charge – settled in. Part conscious movement, part engagement of automatic processes, the harness conformed to him as his little fingers danced along the controls, adjusting the angle of the seat to fit his body just so.

Hawker distances himself from the process, retreats further back as Celn finishes the pre-op.

With helmet on, though, and neural probe inserted into the kid’s warm, lipidic brainstem, Hawker engages the final sequence: like an inhale his chest closes, and his interface stabilizers – there to prevent the tiniest whiplash from turning his pilot into a vegetable – tightened its grip, and —– – – –

The fullness of Celn’s mind came barreling at him like the light at the end of a dark tunnel, and suddenly the two were bathed in neurospace light. Hawker expected nausea as the human inside of him was bombarded with the feed from his own optics, the distant sensation of the mech’s limbs being his own, and about two-dozen different HUDS. Hawker, on the other hand, was suddenly acutely aware of the kid’s every conscious thought, his every tiny movement, his every discomfort, and yep, there it was – the nausea.

“If you vomit in there, I’ll make you wish you were never born,” he said, voice sounding inside the helmet. It was, in fact, an act of mercy; he could have just as well said it directly into Celn’s mind. But he’d give him a moment to get his wits about him first.

 

* * *

 

Chris innately knew what he should expect. He wasn’t a complete novice, and in his mind is the digitally download information on Hawker’s model. But knowing so much different than experiencing. His small organic body is forgotten. Walking, standing, moving. For his whole life he’d felt sure of using the body he’d been born into. Now he is Hawker.

15 of destruction. Tons of perfect death. Lifetimes of combat data, always analyzing the moment to ensure victory. Superiority by design. Hawker’s begrudging acceptance of the rookie? Chris now  _understood_  that the AI had every right to be dismissive of the young human.

He really wasn’t ready for something like Hawker. His skills are suited for tank duty. Maybe a 8 foot tall exo suit. Even an experienced combat pilot would be daunted. The overwhelming nature of being Hawker filled him like a gallon of beer into a shotglass.

What is a Chris Celn? Human. A survivor. Quick. Observant. Always looking for details, valuable and dangerous things. He seeks motives. He would make a good detective. He is small. He looks for ways around, not though. He exists in a world where everything exists for bigger beings. He experienced a life nearly the opposite of the AI.

At least he didn’t scream a second time. The only cry of terror barely escaped as the hatch sealed him in. A howl lost in hydraulics.

_“If you vomit in there, I’ll make you wish you were never born.”_

Swallow. SWALLOW! There. Deep breaths. There is no closing his eyes to blot out information, no covering his ears to stop sounds. The full complement of Hawker’s sensor data took the place of his own eyes and ears. He didn’t see where his hands and feet were. He just knew now. He knew where they mech stood. Where we stood. Oh yes, it is very much ‘we’ now. Chris’s identity is rough, needing cutting and polishing before it would fit ideally into the space the robot had allocated.

Thirty seconds is a long time for an AI. Not enough time for a human. He forces himself to steady, pushing his will back, fighting for his place inside of Hawker. In the mindspace, he’d like a single piece of cereal in a bowl of milk. Both the milk and the bowl are hawker, and he’s saturated and broken apart. He wills himself together, forcibly arranging the HUDs in a useful grid. His jaw clenches tight as he swallows back more bile.

It’s like riding a roller coaster while doing calculus; while the operator mocks and judges you.

“What is our first task?” he thinks outwardly, trying to show that he isn’t completely overwhelmed. Heart rate is peaked, he’s taking deep breaths mixed with shallow gasps, and sweat’s soaking the rubber pilot suit.

At least he didn’t faint.

 

* * *

 

 _Well what have we here…_  the giant mech caught glimpses of the film reels in Celn’s head – memories, sensations, emotions. His time working for the gangs: getting the shit beat out of him here and there, the pain of a heel to the ribs; a gun – normally such an insignificant piece of gadgetry to the multi-million dollar war machine – shoved up in his face, the blood beating in his ears as time slows; the thrill of a successful delivery. Then, the war: the sharp ache of hunger; biting cold; the shivering, shivering, shivering; the endless dim haze of a blacked out sun; the equally dim hope that he’ll be lucky to have a life beyond this. The rest, less traumatizing, less acute, was scattered out before him in an ever-shifting, ever-undulating mass of heat and pulse and thought. Ah, wetware.

But Celn was in him, too. The little human’s consciousness crept up through his wiring, made its uneasy, forcibly unhinged way through his processing centers, his memory cores. It was a distinct feeling, having a human swimming through your proverbial veins. Briefly, he wondered what it must be like for the small, fragile thing. And then he didn’t.

_“What is our first task?”_

If Hawker’s voice was gravel under the treads of an Abrams MK-VIII, then Celn’s, even here, was like dry leaves on pavement.

<Your first task,> he corrected, pointing ahead of them, <is pick up that rifle and fire on that target. I’ve been incapacitated, and you’ve taken manual control.>

He will take this opportunity to monitor Celn’s thoughts and movements from a “distance”.

<I want to see how well you can dance before we  _tango._ >

 

* * *

 

Chris had three ‘artificial’ fingers and two ‘artificial’ toes. Extremities tend to be disposable in extreme duress. Not technically artificial of course, cloned from source material and surgically attached. That’d been what he’d spent his sign on bonus on. His left knee still didn’t fully bend after that fall off an overpass. Details. The way his skin felt against the rubber of the pilot suit. He is so focused on the machine around him, he’s ignoring his own body. Perhaps it’s because Hawker had spent so long with the first pilot, Lee, that a new mind is something to explore. And Chris didn’t guard himself the way Lee had. The mech could endend awareness.. perhaps control? Nothing seemed to prevent reaching through the interface and making the human inside move.

Or, if those barriers are there, Chris wasn’t advertising them. Lee had set borders right away.

_< I want to see how well you can dance before we tango.>_

Tango. Briefly, the human’s mind is distracted. A vision of him holding a rose between his teeth, dancing, music all around, his partner? Hawker’s left hand, leading on a wooden dance floor.

The vision fades as he recalls the necessary controls. Thankfully, somethings are automatic. He thinks about moving his legs, the muscles gently twitch in the restraints. His hands fall onto the joysticks.

6 Tons of mechanical force takes a half-step. Then, a full step. Each one lacks grace, but by the time Chris halts at the rifle there’s no danger of falling over.

He doesn’t do the wall any favors as he leans down, accidently putting a divot and a web of cracks where he gently knocks our head into it. “Ow.” He felt that! Thankfully, he barely scuffed the paint. The slow movements are comical, like he’s moving through molasses. Rifle up. Rifle in hands and straighten. Turn. Turn more. Advance to position. Step. Step. Step. Halt. Safety off.

One of the fantastic things about being a machine is having such excellent vision. All around, thermal and ultraviolet, radar and lidar. The rifle has two HUDs that become prominent, allowing Chris to simultaneously see down the rifle as well as in all directions. Both sniper and spotter. Butt to shoulder. Set feet in position. Elbows up. Finger on the trigger, first digit centered on the trigger. <Just like any other time on the range. Act natural.> He inhales and holds his breath.

“Firing.”

If there’s recoil, he doesn’t notice. 6 Tons and 15 of Titanium and exotic polymers barely rock from the 8 foot rifle. With the scope’s maginfication, it’s like shooting something just a few feet away.

Off center right. Off center left. Dead Center. Off center down. Off center up. Dead Center. Click. Click. All six on target.

Feet together, finger off trigger, safety on. He can feel a dull ache in the back of his head, where his overtaxed vision center is trying to make sense of having 14 eyes. He focuses on the smouldering target.

<What is my next task?>

 

* * *

 

They took a shaky step, immense weight threatening to topple; Hawker was there, though. He wasn’t going to let them fall. He can feel Celn’s legs twitch, nerves and brain hemispheres light up as though he himself were walking. Good. Hawker felt, for a brief moment, that he had flimsy and elastic human legs.

Then, as Celn guided their hands to the rifle, he suddenly had human arms too, and muscle. But only a little.

<Steady…>

The rest came easy. As soon as Celn not just understood, but was able to take for granted, that Hawker’s hulking metal body was his, it seemed to click. The rest was a matter of marksmanship, panoptic sensors or no.

$4200-worth of ammunition later, Hawker looked over the remains of their 100-yard target.

<78% accuracy,> he announced. <You’ve got two weeks to raise that by fifteen points, otherwise you’ll have both Kole  _and_  I to answer to, greenhorn.>

_< What is my next task?>_

The mech, his stream of running layers of quantum software now laid bare for Celn to explore at his will (because one could be at once both  _in_  the rushing river  _and_  observant of it), send a wireless command to the range’s computer system. At Hawker’s discretion they stepped around the wall and into the range itself, in the midst of the targets as they now arranged themselves in a circle around them. Thick, clear panels fell into place to block off the viewing end of the range.

Hawker wordlessly prompted Celn to reload the weapon. Together, they accessed the mech’s ammunition hold in his right shoulder, which produced another cartridge with a hiss and  _ka-klack_.

<We’ll test your reaction time next.> Hawker gestured to the targets around them, which were color-coded red or green. Every once in a while, the computer would swap one’s color without warning. <I will pick targets at random, and you will have exactly 0.5 seconds to decide if it is a friend,> he said, conjuring the color green, <or foe.> He conjured red.

The mech lifted the rifle to his shoulder without the human’s cooperation, leveling it at a target that was currently green, and disengaging the safety.

<On my mark.>

He let three of Celn’s heartbeats serve as countdown before he turned on his massive heel at great speed, obfuscating most of his own sensors in order to confuse his pilot, then stopped on a dime to center on a random target.

<Begin!>

 

* * *

 

Chris felt relief that he didn’t outright miss. There’s a surety that comes into their motions as Hawker steps in and begins filtering experience into them. <I’ll work on that. Perhaps you can aid me on the normal range,> citing the cost of the Mech’s ammo, <and improve my skill with your preferred weaponry.> Of course. Slipping through his skill set, Chris would be drawn to handguns. At his size, rifles are unwieldy without mounts or a sandbag.

The rookie stopped thinking again, and he saw outward in a new way. The wireless layers of data surrounding them. He knew it is there, but the Mech now helpfully displayed the coverage and the saturation of Precinct 42. It looked like a lazer rock concert. How Hawker could pick out useful information, the right network and manipulate it? Chris barely followed the mech’s commands as they flew out and altered the range. He sighs in frustration, breath tickling the filters inside the mask. He really did want to be a properly pilot, but every minute he kept realising how much more he was going to have to learn!

That spin though. Hawker got the unpleasant sensation of Chris’s nasua bubbling up. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to talk, as he’s keeping his lips tight together.

<Green. Hold.>  
<Red. Fire.>  
<Gree- Hold.>  
<Red- Fire!>  
<Gre- Hold>  
<R- Fire>  
It’s beautiful. If such a thing can be called lovely. Chris mind forgetting about the small body within and concentrating at the task at hind. Almost like deep slumber, he enters the zone as his stops thinking and starts dowing. He’s aprt of the machine. Subservient to the AI in command. Guiding, authorizing.  
<Hold>  
<Hold>  
<Fire>  
<Fire>  
<Hold>  
<Fire>  
..Then it stops. But for a few moments, he’d been right where he should be.

<We need to reload.> The human thought, wishing the contents of his stomach would stay down where they belonged.

 

* * *

 

Hawker sensed Celn’s innate preference for handguns, so when they were through, he gave the rook a moment calm his stomach as he silently strode back through to where they started and set the rifle back up in the rack.

He reached up – ambidextrous, but now favored his right hand because Celn did – and out of a compartment on his back shot up a 30mm handgun: perfectly positioned to be grasped, ready to fire, in urgency. It was a handgun to Hawker; still, it ran almost three feet long and weighed in at 90 pounds. A faint recess in his forearm opened, revealing another small compartment out of which was fed the ammo-belt; he had an on-board capacity of about 200 such shells. The mech deftly demonstrated loading it into the receiving slot in the side of the gun, even though Celn had the information downloaded into his own mind. Sometimes it helped to perform the action in the “flesh” before needing to do a cold-recall under more stressful circumstances. In his time around humans, Hawker learned not to underestimate the power of “muscle memory”.

<We’ll do it again,> he said, distancing himself from his pilot in order to get a more calculating bead on his vitals. Everything checked out. His brainwaves were steady; this was promising. <Except this time, we’ll use colors that you have little instinctual response toward.>

They stepped back into the range – the ring, almost – and the colors on the refreshed targets were now white and yellow. It would be much more difficult to tell them apart under haste and duress.

The mech positioned himself –  _themselves_  – similar to before.

<On my mark… begin!>

 

* * *

 

The mech let a faint smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

It was an absurd thing, to have a mouth at all, but Hawker was designed to have a face and he’d be damned if he didn’t use it. Because it was as much part of him as his hands, or his armaments, or his compact thorium core.

But Celn was grapsing the method. A firm demonstration that, even with shared neurospace, something could be obvious to one end of the link and not the other.

That, at the end of the day, Hawker could still be in  **charge**.

It was, if he let go of himself for a while, a thrilling sensation. There were fingers in his fingers; tendons in his servos; boots in his feet. The human had donned him like an oversized costume, in a way, and still done his job. Hawker had insinuated that the human would be trying him ‘on for size’: wearing him like a second suit on top of his pilot’s suit.

Hawker felt worn. Hollow. Malleable. At once both receptive and resilient to his pilot’s whims… at once both fifteen feet of metal and less than six feet of flesh. However, even if he’d wanted to, there was no mechanism by which he could force Celn’s movements the way Celn could force his own.

This was the way of things.

When man and machine were mis-aligned, it hurt. Hurt like un-lubricated bearings, or a sore back. But when they did… woe be to those who got in their way. Hawker wasn’t being dramatic when he compared it to a dance, really. Though his feet were bigger and his gait heavier, it was still a partnered choreography nonetheless. And it seemed to him, whether he wanted it or not, that Chris was more than capable of delivering on his proverbial footwork.

Hawker’s programming ran cleanly. He felt the components of his cockpit seemed… close to its occupant. The vital, thrumming little smear of heat. Chris Celn was a spot of wetness inside of him, powerful in his abilities – likely more powerful than either the mech or the human was prepared to give him credit for – but small and fragile nonetheless.

_< How.. how did we do?>_

Hawker was at rest now, tendrils of smoke curling up into the air from the heat rising from his exhausted service pistol. The air around it shimmered with the temperature differential. Somewhere, a sensor read the weapon’s surface temperature as well above 200F. It was no matter to the either of them – just another blip of numerical data.

Even across a linkup like this, the mech was careful to establish boundaries. Remind Celn where he began and ended, and where his legal responsibilities did too. The kid would be well aware that the HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker unit, equipped as it was with Deep Field 2 AI, was legally prohibited from discharging a firearm on the street without a certified on-board human. There were many instances of him struggling against such a directive, readily available for review in his memory banks, but it was  _important_  to him that Celn grasp, in his meager, calcium-formed bones, that this  _was the way of things_.

<We performed… sufficient enough for a rookie. We’ll break for 10 minutes and regroup.>

It was an unreasonable command, he knew, but he partly wanted to see how Celn would react to such rapid disconnection and reconneciton, as well as… giving himself room to think on this entire thing in private. To think on the probability that he had, in fact, stumbled into a true replacement pilot after all.

Even before terminating their link, Hawker’s chest splayed itself open almost of its own accord and surely almost disrupting Celn’s sense of place and persona. Infinite Mirror Phenomenon was at a much higher risk when either party did things like this, but Hawker was suddenly feeling the need to be alone for a few minutes. If Celn could avoid the psychosis-inducing feedback loop of IMP so far, then breaking such a “fourth wall” should have been no problem.

“You’re hungry,” Hawker lied. “Grab a snack and meet me back here.”

 

* * *

 

_< We performed… sufficient enough for a rookie.>_

We.  **We.**  Not I. Not you. Not his name or rookie or scab. We. Somehoe his trained had taken root. Somehow he’d done it. Briefly, he’d managed to share his consciousness with Hawker. They’d done the slowest Waltz and he’d made a number of mistakes as they’d shuffled along. But had happened! He wanted to dance and cheer! <Good!> And his youthful joy bubbled up like a fountain inside.

_< We’ll break for 10 minutes and regroup.>_

Chris felt relief flow through him. He wasn’t ready for any more combat right now. If Hawker had just sat and meditated, then things would have been sufficient. He’d dumped at least a quart of sweat out in these minutes and needed to drink. He’d also had his heart racing and it’d felt like he’d been inside for hours now. Taking in that kind of information, what Hawker routinely experiences, made him want to lay down for a few hours. Then the mech’s chest plates opened.

When they’d picked up the rifle, Chris had simply gotten more HUDs on the main display that piped into his brainstem. The Infinite Mirror Phenomenon is aptly named. Chris could see out the hatch. He could see beyond the cockpit, a dark place that he should only be vaguely aware of. For several agonizing seconds, his vision bounced between ocular input and simulated input; before his eyelids shut. Thankfully the connection was already starting to sever, as he’d lost his focus and would have tried to drunkenly yaw to the left.

**HUNGRY**

Around Chris, the restraints and clamps of the pilot’s chair retracted and released. Calling it a chair is a misnomer. IT’s more of a human-sized cage, a suit within the armor, a means to express movement if necessary. To anyone watching, they’d seen just how tightly the small rookie had been held. Bondage fetishists would have boners over the way the greenhorn was released from layers of metallic, padded restraints. It’s only after the helmet armature releases the connection does the kid slump. It was over. The first real link in months. The only other human to fire a weapon with the Deep Field 2 AI. The little rookie in a second-hand pilot suit.

He’s there for fifteen seconds before the mask’s straps automatically loosen and it retracts upward. No blood from his nose. No arcs of electricity on his skin. He shakily slides out of position, turning and judging where the first handhold was to put his boot on. THump. THump. THump. Warm hands leave their heated, sweaty mark on the rungs. No more human inside. Nothing within to protect. All around him is the smell of ammunition propellent, cordite, sulphur smells. Brass cartridges bigger than his thumb scattered all around. Some flattened into wafer-thin smears by the robot’s feet as they’d switched targets.

He was so small! He had to take each step carefully. One hand on his stomach, the other out for balance. He could feel the warmth coming off Hawker’s reactor behind him. What was he doing? What was going on? Why wasn’t he inside?Hungry. Oh. Yes. He kept his slow and plodding pace toward the red door marked ‘EXIT.’ He’d come in through this.. he realises as his hand rested on the handle. But how? He should be much too big.. to fit? He pushed the door open and walked into storage area..

And into Chief Engineer Colburn ‘s smiling face. She pointed at a scarred and grubby table with cheap plastic chairs. Chris fell into one, staring vacantly toward a wall.

“How do you feel rookie? I saw you and HLX-9 operating.” she inquired, noting his vital signs and other activities the pilot suit transmitted on her datapad.

Chris answered instantly in his head. There was no response back, no powerful command and instruction for the AI. Seconds pass. Then a minute. Colburn coughs, helpfully. Chris remembers his voice. “Hungry. Small.” He blinks, turning his head to look at her. “Tired.”

“You just ate twenty-five minutes ago. How can you be hungry? There’s a water cooler over in the corner, get a drink.” SHe frowns and notes the reaction, looking down at the messages she is passing back and forth with other staff.

Chris wondered he he could make the drink come over with his mind. It didn’t work. Begrudgingly, he pushed himself up and got it, drinking down two cups standing there before he came back down to sit. “Weird.”

“Weird?” her gravelly tone poked toward the scabber.

“Yeah. It felt good, right before he told me to take a break. It’d felt like hours in there.” He takes a sip. “I know it’s only been minutes.. coming back to me now. It was like I was in a trance.” he waves his free hand in front of his face. “We moved. The targets, the sight of the sidearm. We just slid from second to second. At first Hawker was doing everything, I just helped. I wasn’t good enough. I will be better.” He finishes the water, pushing the paper cup around in his fingers as he rests.

“I want to feel that way again.”

 

* * *

 

For a few brief, disorienting moments, Hawker could see his hand, the open hatches of the cockpit, from both his own perspective and Celn’s. His own CPUs could handle the sudden load of mathematically reconciling being in two places at once, but the kid was forced to shut his eyes; an easy sidestep that got Hawker’s approval.

Soon they were two again, and the little human, practically steaming in his suit, uneasily clambered out. He could feel the grease that the fingers left along his leg, the trembling, the swaying. His brain had just done the equivalent of run a three-minute mile – Celn’s reaction wasn’t unwarranted.

Hawker listened to the small door open with the creak of worn metal, and shut with a quiet and satisfying  _ka-click_.

He cleared the spent casings away with a sweep of his massive foot. They made dull pinging sounds as they rolled into each other, and by the time he was done, the first door opened. It was Kole.

“What can I do for you, sir,” the mech asked, studying the bullet-holes they put in the twenty targets.

Police Sergeant Kole walked into the range, casually side-stepping the 50mm brass shells. He folded his big arms and glanced around at the targets along with the giant mech. “Thought I’d come in here to tell you that they’re all taking bets.” A smile crept across his face.

Hawker ran a finger along his chin as he continued his survey. “On?”

“How fast you’re gonna break your new toy.”

The machine actually scoffed before breaking out into a low, rolling chuckle. The irreverence of such banter was par for the course around here, but there was something about it the mech appreciated. Or maybe it was the fact that Kole and Davidson had been close, and the rare quiet moment the two had together like this made it seem like Lee had just popped out of the room and would be back in a moment.

An easy few moments passed, but the mech sobered up, feeling the weight of this entire thing. Remnants of images and information from his old life, garbled and truncated beyond all recognition, ghosted just beyond memory. No words, no faces, no sounds, no emotions could he recall, but there was still  _just enough_  there for him to know that this piloting business was deathly serious.

“How many pilots did I have in Siberia, again?” Hawker knew the number, but it always came out as a question anyways.

“Four, I believe.”

“Any of  _them_  still alive?”

“Not a goddamn one.”

Hawker nodded, optics like chips of golden ice. “I think you know how this will turn out then.” An uncomfortable pause. “Celn has the raw potential,” he said at length. “It’s just a question of his endurance.”

“You sure that’s the only question?”

The mech folded his arms too, stepping past Kole to go replenish his ammo. His feet passed dangerously close to the man, but Kole didn’t even blink twice.

“That’s the only question  _I’m_  asking, Sergeant.”

 

* * *

 

Colburn quietly tapped on her datapad while Officer Celn spoke. The kid had come out of the academy 5 months ago, went straight in for surgery. He’d only been cleared for duty for two weeks before he’d rolled the dice on Hawker.

Where that would be snake-eyes remained to be seen. Still, she couldn’t help but update the betting pool.

<Bad news, those of you who said 10 minutes or less. He’s going back in for round two. And yes Peterson, I  **do**  have money on him making it! So don’t think I’m going to have him tap out just for  _your_  paycheck.>

She looked at the clock. 7 minutes. She’d best him back on his feet. “Well, your vital signs are well within tolerances.” she lied. He was way over and should take a nap with an IV drip. But Lee hadn’t ever been normal either when he’d gotten out of Hawker. The mech got deep into it’s pilots, it needed to. Either they figured out a way to survive having an AI in their brains or they burned out. At nine minutes she gestured for him to stand. “I’ll be observing Rookie. You’ve got plenty of day left.”

Chris let out a long sigh. He wished he could stay in the chair. He wanted to be back in Hawker. He wanted to prove himself. He put both hands on the table, boots on the floor and pushed himself up. “Yes ma’am. Returning to training.” He took the cup with him crumpling it into a ball and dropping it into the recycling as he stepped back out onto the range.

Money changed hands, officers and sergeants shared looks. New bets are placed. The security feed from the range experienced the highest request in it’s existence, moving it to position 1 on the camera streams. The private server Colburn had running was busy moving bets as she updated the odds. Option 46 came available: Successful Integration. 100,000 to 1. And she is the only bet on that dark horse.

=——————————————-=

Kole had a smile turning up the left side of his mouth; and the edges of his eyes had those crinkles he’d get right before laughing. “And here I was worried you might have dropped your standards, just to get out on the field.” he chuckled. The man looked happy, “Glad I’m wrong.” The man looked nonplussed as the mech strode past him. “Get that scabber into shape. If he makes it a week, I’ll see about getting both of you out of the station.” Now there’s a tasty morsel of motivation! A chance to get out of the motor pool, to feel the looks of civilians.. the fear of the gangs. Knowing The Long, Metal Arm of the Law is back. “Even if it’s just patrolling around the station.”

=——————————————-=

Click. Creek. THe door to the prep room opened and Chris stepped out. Celn made sure he stood up straight and had his shoulders back as he approached. It was a little strange to see how expressive Hawker’s face is. He wanted to touch it, feel over as the mouth worked. And yeah, he did want the mech to smile at him. Right now, all the looks he can remember getting were disinterest or probing skepticism. “Sergeant, Captain.” He respectfully nodded to the man and the machine. Chris looked better then when he’d left. “I’m ready to continue when you are.”

 

* * *

 

_“Get that scabber into shape. If he makes it a week, I’ll see about getting both of you out of the station.”_

Hawker paused in the middle of reloading the ammo box in his arm, the plug-n-play “cartridge” of fifty-cal rounds light in his hand. He plunged it in, servos whirring to fix it into place and prime the feed.

“I’ve placed my bet,” the mech rumbled. “Those must be the winnings.”

Kole had followed lazily behind him. He gave the side of Hawker’s heel a little kick with his boot and smiled again. “That’s the spirit, Big Nine.”

“…and an expanded arms budget.”

“Now don’t get cocky.”

A creaking to their right, and Celn stood in the doorway to the prep room. 10 minutes ago he looked like he’d been hit by a train – now just a bus.

_“I’m ready to continue when you are.”_

Kole shot the mech a look as he showed himself out, but Hawker didn’t return it. He simply vented air; long and low. The mech turned his optics toward the kid, pondering, for a moment, what it might actually take to break him. What that might look like, and if he could pull himself through. Celn had been through a lot already – Hawker saw it for himself, felt it, when they were linked. Hm.

He opened up his cockpit again, beckoning curtly with two thick fingers. “Get in, greenhorn. I’m going to see how long you can go before we call it a day. No more breaks.”

—

It was four grueling, sweaty hours of reaction-honing before Celn could go no further.

Their shared neurospace was becoming laced with both static and the wetware-equivalent. The kid, Hawker was beginning to realize, had determination in spades; he was willing to put himself through hell to get where he wanted to be. It was a kind of ruthless that the mech could see himself enabling just for the sake of doing so – and this was where Hawker was also beginning to realize that he was truly going to have to take care of his charge.

<No neurospace tomorrow,> he said, feeling Celn panting and trembling. The restraints, it felt like, were the only things keeping him upright. <We’ll alternate time in the cockpit with time in the gym.> He lightened the neural load and began to talk through the speakers in the kid’s helmet. “R&R for tonight. Your mind needs a break.”

 

* * *

 

Chris looked over as Sergeant Kole walked out of the room with that purposeful gait. The calm authority of a seasoned cop. Behind and above him, Hawker emitted built up air pressure like a sigh. The machine is far more realistic then most of it’s kin. Kole had been talking to it with ease. Did they share beers and watch football? What kind of relationships were here? Past AIs he’d known were usually chatty to the point of getting migranes! Hawker didn’t bother with that kind of communication. Hawker is.. masculine. A classic man, like the hero of a war movie.

Those fast thoughts run though his mind as he watches Kole leave. <God. I’ve got so much to learn! And not stepping on toes is gonna be hard, they love the big bot.> A chill ran down Chris’s spine and he swallowed as an ugly truth popped up in his addled mind; and the hairs around the neck implant stood on end. <They are friendly, because Hawker hasn’t rejected me. Yet.>

_“Get in, greenhorn. I’m going to see how long you can go before we call it a day. No more breaks.”_

<Oh. Good.>

“Yes sir.”

No need to ask when he was being called. The look on the machine’s face, the way it gestured, it looked hungry. Like the way his instructors at the academy looked when he’d arrived. Like how they smiled when he’d puked his guts out after running to exhaustion. What had Kole said? Hawker was curious before, now the AI is motivated. It wasn’t making a joke, it is going to push him.

He clambered up easier this time, grasping the handles around the hatch and hauling himself up into the cockpit.

Boots dug into the foot pads, head pressed back as the restraints clamped down and the mask sealed around his mouth and nose. Not that different from a fighter pilot. <Try to break me. Try. I  _dare_  you. THIS rookie isn’t gonna fail.> He promised himself, his last personal thought before the interface initiated. Colors, lights, the way the hatch sealed and the feeling of a contained environment again. Then his awareness expanded outward as he slid his mind up into Hawker’s.

He felt fresh. As invigorated as before. Adrenaline is up. He is pumped, ready. The next two rounds went without error.

—————-

Two hours in, before the rook made a really bad call. Yes, using the butt of the rifle to sweep a grenade away is better then kicking it away. However, that’s no excuse to doing a swing that knocks it toward friendly targets! He should have returned it to the point of origin. At least he rifle is unharmed. And the grenade ejected it’s orange paint all over the representation of a squad car. <FUCK!> He didn’t stop though, he kept on with the exercise. At least he knew that a firefight wouldn’t end with an error.

No human could last forever. Lee had been a marine, a specialist. With lowered sensory inputs and stimulants the man had lasted for days before crashing. Celn had five months in an academy that the Coast Guard made fun of.

Three hours and he’d crossed every line for exhaustion. At three hours and thirty he’d become noticeably sloppy, relying more and more on the AI’s prediction and movements, assenting to firing and pulling the trigger when needed. Hawker might as well not have him inside, the human was barely registering when a new target had appeared. Upwards of 1.8 seconds before a decision was reached! They’d be taking incoming constantly fire at that slow reaction time. They needed to be better then that, they should be taking out targets before they presented a credible threat.

Three hours and forty minutes, Colburn pinged in. Amusingly, she’d only sent the signal to Hawker. -Vitals are a mess, but not lethal. Yet. He’s been doing deep theta wave generation for over an hour. Either you’ve brought him to spiritual enlightenment or his brain’s trying to shut off. I bet he won’t make it 5 more minutes.- She would step in if the scab was in mortal danger but, well, she also had money going on it too.

Chris made it 25 minutes more before he’d absolutely made it to the end. He tried to take a step. His organic foot moved, but the mechanical body stayed still. His left hand and the machine’s shook with an annoying tremor that threw shots completely off the targets. He tried to lift the gun again, but utterly accepted the cessation without a hint of resistance.

The world got quiet as the AI cut down the neural load. The armature that held the neural interface to his head allowed for minimal movement. He wanted to shake his head no, to refuse to do anything more for a week at least. But he couldn’t. His assent came after a few seconds of self-pity. <Yes. Gym tomorrow. Exercise good. No neurospace tomorrow.>

——-

He’d had his eyes closed in anticipation of another Infinite Mirror Phenomenon, not opening them until after the interface had shut down. No, not because he’s exhausted and felt like he’s been through the wringer. Speaking of being wrung out, he’d lost about four pounds due to the sweat that’d come out of him. He was going to need hydration for longer sessions. Perhaps the on-board provisions could be restocked in anticipation for full-day workouts. Even after the smokey devastation of the range had come into view and the thick smell hit his nose he stayed put. It took the threat of having to police brass and clean guns to get him moving.

The suit dripped his sweat out, squishing on the edges of the hatch as he went down slow, only moving one limb at a time. Once he’d made it to the ground, he straighten and rubbed his hands over his face. Over his implant.

“Yes… sir.” Talking is strange. His tongue had to move in his dry mouth. He swallowed. “Gonna get grub.” With that, he exited in the range at a slow walk.  
———————————————-

Annoyingly, Colbrun wasn’t alone. Two techs were with her, an Officer is hurriedly going out into the hall, and Chris noticed at least five down the hall further past the doorway. But, there was a freakin’ medical droid.

There is nothing worse then a sanctimonious doctor who doesn’t understand why organics don’t each a diet of lentils and rice.

Of course it came up to him. Of course it made him stand. And it gave him a big bottle of warm water mixed with electrolytes. Ugh. Like seawater. Why couldn’t it be gatorade? As it kept checking him over, telling him he needed to drink in that quiet all-knowing tone; Colbrun had a smile on her face. The techs re-checked his measurements with the suit, the medical android assisting them with pinpointing what needed further alteration. And it wouldn’t leave him alone until he finished the whole salty drink. THen it game him another one. Worse, he was still thirsty so he kept pulling on it like shitty beer.

“Well rookie, it looks like we’re going to have to get those other pilot suits adjusted. But for now, get that off, take a shower and eat. I’ll see if we can get you a room bigger then a Vanguard’s cockpit.”

Chris is too exhausted and annoyed to be modest. He strips and hands the expensive pilot suit over. Sweat’s pooled in the built-in boots. At least he’s given a pair of shorts before they head off and he stumbles down to the elevator. The shower feels amazing, and he spends half the time rubbing over the interface plate. It aches. His mind aches. He heads into the mess and goes double on the protein. Wearing a grey t-shirt that says ‘Police Academy’ in faded letters, a pair of grey sweats, and scuffed running shoes. He spoons the food into his mouth, back to the room, staring at a wall, oblivious to the world around him.

The wall is off-white. THere’s the remains of a stain. Coffee probably. It’s so nice to just look forward. To hear just murmurs instead of gunshots. The soft clatter of the kitchen instead of shells hitting concrete. Even after he finished, he’s still spooning, scraping absently the tray. Then a thought comes.

“Fuck.” He pulls out his phone. Hawker’s number came to him. And the bot’s email. Typing it in, he sends a text. ‘It’s Chris Celn.’ Of course the AI probably knew his contact info. ‘What time do I report for training tomorrow?’


	3. The Black Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where a simple training exercise winds up ripping open old wounds.

Hawker almost felt like he was made of meat and water by the time they were done: Celn had lost so much of his own bodily moisture that even his own olfactory sensors were hit with the smell of stale, sweaty air when he opened up for the last time that day. If Chris looked like he’d lost a few pounds, then that weight was definitely in water, and it was dripping out the bottom of the cockpit.

His words were halting and a little slurred, but the mech knew he’d learn to switch between neurospace and meatspace with much less fallout as the days went by. Eventually, the transitions would be  _almost_  seamless.

“Dismissed,” the giant mech said, watching as the scab staggered out.

—

Twenty minutes later, and Hawker was back at his slab as techs hooked him up for a fluid flush. They had a habit of acquiring contaminants after the use of firearms, and though it was in the parts-per-million, Hawker wasn’t going to wait until carbon and metal buildup in his hundreds of feet of hosing caused him physical pain before filtering them out. He preferred being in top working order, and was a stickler for preventative maintenance.

Another tech was cleaning out his cockpit. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he worked, spraying and wiping down every surface in there. Hawker could feel the rag against the seat. “You really did a number on him, didn’t you?”

Most of Hawker’s sensors were offline. He was enjoying his respite from the inputs. “They call it the hot seat for a reason, Thule.”

“Yeesh. Glad I never went to scab school.”

“What,” came the taunting voice of the other tech on a gantry behind him. “You couldn’t even handle drone duty?” she laughed.

“Fuck that,” he snorted. “Have you seen the weight those guys put on, sitting in those chairs all day? No thank you, I enjoy not being a fat-ass.”

Hawker scowled, and let out a growling rev of his internals. The humans flinched.

“Sorry boss, we’ll pipe down.”

“You’d better.”

—

The mech was mulling over a newsfeed – the conglomeration of 47 different agencies around the world – when words barged into his foreprocessors.

 _It’s Chris Celn,_  they said.  _What time do I report for training tomorrow?_

Two four-hour intensives was usually Kole’s recommended training day: one for strength and endurance training, the other for firearms training. Though he would rarely be firing a gun with his own two hands, it was beneficial to be intimately familiar with the scaled-down versions of Hawker’s arsenal, and to get good at using them with his own body. The 50-caliber pistol would be traded for a 9mm sidearm, the rifle for a custom-made gun-mortar using 60mm shells as ammunition (to be filled with rubber for practice purposes), among others.

There were so many other things that needed to be done before the two of them could even  _think_  about leaving the precinct, though: emergency controls, escape in the case of Hawker’s total failure, the basics of navigating civilian infrastructure without causing millions in damage, as well as training for the possibility of going up against an enemy mech as a human.

Hawker had played the part of gang mech during several such demonstrations, but one-on-one demos were usually reserved for command-track officers, raid unit leaders, and the rare scab who would be operating on the street and away from other human support. The psychological stress of being hunted down by a massive death machine on foot was formidable enough. It would someday be important for Celn to know how to put up a fight.

But that was for later. He had other things to master first.

 _0600_ , he replied.  _Arms practice first in the officer’s shooting range, break, then cardio and weights with a trainer. For that, you’re to use a wireless plug so I can monitor your progress remotely._

 

* * *

 

Chris watched as the response appeared on his phone. He texted back ‘Affirmative’, not noticing that somehow the background of his phone had changed to a promotional shot of an HLX-9 standing victoriously on the smouldering ruins of an enemy tank. THe phone went back into his pocket and he finished his drink. He needed to sleep. He needed to download another chapter of Hawker’s manual before their next session. He’d do it tomorrow. He didn’t want thing touching his interface port except for a pillow. He’d just put the tray with the other dirty dishes when..

“Hey, rookie. Yeah you!” Chris turned to find himself looking at another scabber. Well, scabber really wasn’t the right work. The man is hispanic, in his forties, still looked to be in decent shape. THe interface on his neck looked as natural as possible. Professional pilot for sure. “I’m Ferdinand. I’m gonna help you up to your new dorm. You’re in room 8A now. Floor 8 is where they keep all of us. At least, those of us who stay at the station. Not much good housing around 42.”

Chris blink at him. SUre the words went in but, he didn’t feel like talking. A long moment passed, enough to be an uncomfortable pause. He raised his hand and shook Ferdinand’s. “Chris. CHris Celn. I’m.. tired..” he spoke a a calm, near-monotone.

“Shit kid. I know Hawker is tough but you look like you spend 4 days out there,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate outside. “Not 4 hours on the range. C’mon. I’ll help ya out.”

A duffel bag and a backpack were all that were needed to contain Chris’s possessions. If Ferdinand found it weird that Chris had no photographs, toys, books. He didn’t even have non-police issued clothes. Outside of a smart phone and it’s charger.. Chris was devoid of materials. The rookie tucked away the certificates from the police academy and scab school. (Technical Certification of Mind Machine Interface. A Rating.)

Ferdinand led Chris to the elevator, carrying the duffel for the rookie. “Right so there’s usually 12 of us here. Most good pilots get transferred where we’re needed. Drone guys usually are centrally located. They can remote from anywhere, so they’re in nice neighborhoods. THose of us in tanks tend to get rotated, so we keep the AIs regularly exercised. Tanks don’t go out much. MRAV pilots tend to stay for a while. THose go out daily.”

Floor 8 is pleasant. Doesn’t look like it’s 60 years old. Fresh paint on the walls. There’s a kitchen that looks clean and well used. THere’s a living area with couches, and a TV showing the mid-day news. A woman waves, she’s got a can of soda and a plate piled with potato chips. She’s a pilot too. Everyone on this floor is. “Hi rookie.” SHe offers pleasantly, before turning to watch TV and getting a face full of starch and sugar.

Room 8A is the first on the right. The computer is far newer. The interface cable looks long enough to reach the bed, it’s a real bed too. Not a cot like down below. THere’s a small table with two chair and a large closet. Chris and Ferdinand up pack into it. The two plastic framed papers get stood on the otherwise empty desk. “So uh, Welcome to 42’s penthouse.”

The other man gestured for Chris to follow him out. He Opened the fridge.. oh wow. Sodas, Lunch meat, bottle water. THe pilots probably kept a private provision list going. What go Chris’s attention is the orange juice. He grabbed one, and followed Ferdinand to the couches. THe woman turned off the TV. “I’m Jane. You’re Chris, right? We’ve.. we’ve all been watching. What’s it like?”

“Yeah! What’s it like to pilot him? I bet he’s like a drill sergeant. All business.” Jane shook her head. “Nah. I bet he’s cold. That stuff he does with humans is an act. He’s pure logic at his core.”

Chris stared at them. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. If he’d been given any other job, he’d probably get bouncing off the walls in excitement. He sure a fuck wanter Hawker. But the mech had simply ground him down today. And gave no signal that it would do anything but continue to crush him with each session until it was satisfied.

“The .. the Vanguard is strong.” He admitted, opening his drink. Man. So good, the acidic bite. The sweetness. He remembered fighting and trading food in public housing. Sadly, those are his good memories. “It’s the storm. I do your job. Or he’s not interested in me.” his words are slow, they come out with careful enunciation.

Jane sighed. “Sorry Rook. You’re burned out. How about we watch some mindless TV and you hit the sheets early.” SHe turned it back on, changing the channel to a popular show. THe host cackled, smooching each of the beautiful women he had on each arm. ‘I’ll buy THAT for a dollar! Haw haw!’

—-

At 0530, Chris’s phone went off. Shower. Clothes. Breakfast. He rode the elevator to the officer’s shooting range. Colburn wasn’t there, but a tech and a SWAT guy is. Both are failing not to smirk. CHris had a coffee in hand. He looked better. Normal-ish. “What?” he asked.

The tech held it out. The SWAT Officer, a hand black man who probably had to duck through doorways, guffawed. Chris knew logically it made sense. Wireless interfaces were difficult. You could wear one as part of a helmet. Or as part of body armor. But if you were expected to be wearing training clothes, like he is..

then a collar made logical sense. But did the collar  _have_  to be so obvious? He strong suspected that if they’d have more time, then It’d have tag dangling that mentioned just who he belonged to.

He sighed. On it went. THe tech ensured that the power charge is good, then flicked on the transmitted keyed to Hawker’s personal frequency. THe carrier message included a few mentions of leashes.

“Heh! Well greenhorn, I’m SWAT Marksman Preston. And Today, and for the foreseeable future we’re going to be doing weapon drills. As much as the HLX-9 enjoys tearing up the range, all that ammunition is expensive. THe stuff we’ll be firing is a fraction of the cost. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be able to use your weapons like you’d been born with them.” The man gestured to the range where a table with weapons.. and a literal cart of munitions sat.

“Let’s start with your stances. Pick up that 9mm and take your time. Uh-huh. Alright. Standard footing. But here…” And it began. THe first hour had been going through each of the weapons, practicing holding them, standing, going into position. Preston often moving the rookie into place, showing the smaller scab the right ways to movie, even pressed up behind him, reaching around to adjust how he held a weapon.

——

As Celn finished lunch, he made sure to wash his hands again. They still smell of gunpowder. He like Preston. The man had a genuine interest in weaponry and showed off some impressive skill when taking down targets. He is looking forward to seeing him in two days. Training on the range is calming.

——

“You’re shitting me.” remarked the man wearing a baseball hat, tank top and track pants. His near-perfect physique made him look like a model. Despite being just three inches taller than Chris, he must have had 50 pounds, easy. “You’re the scabber who lasted 4 hours on day 1? With Big Nine? I don’t fucking believe it.” He crossed his arms, leaving back in an impressive display of anatomy.

Chris ‘s eyebrows pinched inward and his normal smile turned into a frown. He looked up and met the brown eyes of the trainer. “4 hours, 15 minutes. And lasting is a good way to put it. Are you going to help me make that 8 hours?”

The man unfolded his arms, brushing the tinies ball of white lint off his left pectoral. “Yeah. I can do it. But I don’t think you got what it takes to keep up. We’ll start you with cardio. Once you’re warmed up, then it’ll be weights. I’d say we’d do just arms today but..” he rolled his eyes and scoffed “Pretty sure you’ll be limping outta here after two hours on the machines.”

* * *

 

The thing about Deep Field 2 was that, aside from being a quantum system, its design was twofold: the operating system was structured around associative pattern recognition, which is what made Hawker’s uncannily human-like thought processes possible. Unlike a human, though, every single program he ran, every single sub-routine, was transparent to him if he so chose to pay attention. Most of the time, that kind of conscious management was undesirable and unnecessary. He was equipped with incredible amounts of processing power, sure, but he still had to delegate to hindprocessors. So in that way, the engineers behind DF2 took inspiration from octopus intelligence: brains in every tentacle, so to speak.

This was all a very involved way of explaining how Hawker was in possession of a scope of  _attention_ , and of a limited ability to multitask compared to more traditional computing systems.

So he had to ‘check in’ on Celn’s progress throughout the morning. He turned his attention to the information that the wireless was transmitting to him, the blips of thoughts and sensations and numbers data. Preston was a capable trainer, and one of Hawker’s favorite people to discuss matters of weaponry with. Celn was in good hands.

The mech had intended on focusing on other things – run of the mill police work; filing reports – but Chris’s performance in the range intrigued him enough to keep him glancing back in through the little window that the wireless provided. The “collar”, he remembered with a faint chuckle. It took a lot to distract Hawker from work, admittedly. Colburn tried every once in a while, and he’d usually retaliate by shutting off power to her shop.

—

Hawker wasn’t familiar with the personal trainer, though.  _Must be new_ , he thought, cocking his head and diving into 42’s server to pull up his file. Yes, he was new. Started a month ago, recruited from some bougie neighborhood where he’d go train people in their own homes.  _Shit, Chicago still **has**  money like that?_ Whatever, so long as the man produced results.

The mech kept a wary, proverbial eye on the situation in the gym as he went about his business. Kole had his hands full today with a double-homicide, otherwise he’d ask the brass to come in and give the rookie a few pointers.

 

* * *

 

As Chris jogged on the treadmill at a heartrate of 195, the trainer conferred with a few others over the rookie’s goals in the shared office.

“What the hell is this? Am I supposed to train that shrimp up or wha?” Alvin Yorker is a contract employee of the state. Buff, strong jaw, looks good in tight clothes. One of 20 people hired by a city wide initiative to combat ‘doughnut belly.’ Not that it was a bad idea, but trying to motivate a cop into putting down confectionary by hiring cute trainers? There’s been worse plans.

Alvin rolled his bright blue eyes, his carefully styled hair looking perfect as he check himself out in one of the many mirrors. He looked over the chart that’d been helpfully provided from some .. Captain Hawk. Captain Hawker? Whatever. “This is seriously nuts. How the hell am I supposed to pack twenty pounds of muscle on the runt and boost his endurance?” The other trainer shrugged her shoulders. The woman is in her forties with the body of a twenty-two year old. A fit 22 year old. “Look, it’s not a bad plan. Do like 45 to 60 minutes of cardio. Then once his stomach’s settled have him protein pre and post workout.”

The only police employee in the room had different feelings on the matter. He’d put money down on Chris making it two hours before passing out. The scab had endurance. THat ment on days when he’d be in the gym, there would be no respite. The two gym bunnies didn’t know why some young rookie suddenly became a priority; they just needed to get him in proper fighting shape. “The goals are 20 to 25 pounds of muscle, so that’s getting him up to 170 to 175 pounds. Able to do a five minute mile. 13.5 Seconds for a 100m sprint. 4:30 marathon. Climbing training, swimming training. Then, once he’s in shape there’s a schedule to keep him there.” He drank from the cup of coffee on his desk. “So, no big deal. Turn that 145 pound kid into an olympic track star.” he shook his head. He got Alvin’s frustration.

“With 3 to 4 days a week training, with a 4 hours window. Weights each time. Swap cardio for swimming or climbing every other session. Get it done.”

Alvin looked at the information that is collated into a datapad. “Fuck man, shoulda just put him in the Marines. Would have made this job easier. Bet he cracks out.” He swaggered out, leaving the others in the office that overlooked the athletics room. He pushed a button Chris’s treadmill, activating the cooldown. “When you finish get a protein drink from the fridge. Get it down your neck before you meet me at the machines.” he gestured at the row of equipment “Gotta see where your strength is at twerp. Then you’re gonna work everything until ya can’t move.”

Alvin looked healthy. His skin had the kind of tan you had to work for. The normal looking clothes had to be tailored to fit like that. Chris felt old.. old habits sparking inside. His trainer would cry, wet his pants if he got a knife on him. THe kind of bitch that’d go down with a jackrabbit punch to the gut, leaving his girl screaming as he made off with the purse and wallet.

He wasn’t like that anymore. He sighed, finishing on the treadmill as he envisioned kicking that moisturised nose in. Therapeutic thoughts. The protein supplement isn’t bad either.

———————-  
“GAH!” Chris’s arms felt like noodles. His stomach is on fire. His shoulders are weak and make od bread. He is laying on his back; and his legs refused to give any more movements. “C’mon little dude. THis is just 200 pounds. That’s like, you in wet gear. PUSH IT UP! One more!” Alvin loved talking down to him. Showing off his strong arms and legs as they’d worked out. Embarrassingly, the trainer demonstrated how to do each exercise and didn’t even seem to break a sweat. Chris managed one more, with jelly legs.

“Well, that’ll be okay. I guess.” Alvin examined the sheet, adjusting the values for Chris’s performance. “You’re done for the day. Protein up. Each time, before and after. Gotta grow that muscle. Gonna take a long time on you.” He reset the weight to 0, gesturing for Chris to get moving so he could wipe down the seat and get out for the end of the day. “C’mon. I want to get out before 6.”

Somehow Chris managed to get up to the 8th floor. The communal shower is smaller and featured individual stalls. He took a plastic chair and sat in one, letting the water run over his aching form. Half an hour later he emerged, toweling off and looking in the mirror. A very tired Celn looked back. Wearing a collar. He’d showered with it? Well.. crap. Looked waterproof. He concentrated though the connection. <What time tomorrow Hawker?> He’d barely felt the mech all day.

 

* * *

 

The mech observed, and he was coming to the conclusion that this Yorker kid wasn’t up to snuff. Who’s goddamn idea was it to bring in a civilian trainer? Hawker didn’t like civilians, didn’t get along with them – they thought differently. They didn’t understand discipline, self-sacrifice, the honors and dishonors of war. Er… policing.

Kole thought they had merits. That they “keep us honest”, to use his words. That may be true, and 42 was certainly one of the most watched police departments in the entire country, with journalists hovering like biting flies. But Kole had charisma, too. He knew how to play the game.

But Kole was busy, so he paged somebody else in admin who might know who bungled this decision.

“Uh huh?” came the voice on the other end of the line. It was Sam Thatcher, one of the pencil-pushing project managers upstairs. Probably forgot how to use his gun years ago.

“Who hired Alvin Yorker?” Hawker cooly demanded.

“H-Hawker, sir,” Thatcher stammered. The mech could almost feel the man straighten up in his chair, tug at his collar. “We, uh… as you know, we restructured the whole workout program last fall after Graves left…”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Thatcher swallowed. “Uh, I did, sir.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Well, what… what don’t you like about him? We could sit him down and -”

“He’s a goddamn meathead, Thatcher. You should have pulled somebody from D.C. They’ve got a good program there.”

“With all due respect, sir…

“With all due  _respect_ , you’re going to work on replacing him. Leave Kole to me.”

“Yes, sir.” A mumble.

“Excuse me?”

“N-nothing, sir.”

“Replace him. That’s an order.” The line closed. Hawker had heard the man, actually:  _Fuckin’ jarheads._

—

When Hawker checked in on Celn again, the first thing he sensed was water. Steam. Slow, heaving breaths. Exhaustion.

The kid was in the shower.

The mech lingered there for a while, just on the edges of his awareness. A silhouette in the shadows. To what end? A few minutes passed, and Hawker realized it was to no real end at all. And still, he was there. Watching in silence as the human nursed his feeble body, almost fallen asleep in that chair. He wondered if the collar was still worn intentionally or not – probably not.

_< What time tomorrow, Hawker?>_

The mech stepped out of the shadows. <0700\. We’ll be in the crash room for emergency training.> He sent something across their connection that suggested the probability of further exhaustion for Celn.

<Yorker is right about one thing: your protein intake needs to be higher.> A picture of Lee flashed in his memory. The man was 5’10” – Hawker’s cockpit would have been impossible for anyone over 6-foot to occupy – but built like a tank. In the photo he was working on something that required a heavy-duty torque wrench and cheater pipe. There was grease on his forehead from where he’d wiped the sweat from his brow. In the background was Colburn, laughing as usual.  _Lee was special_ , the simple flash of memory seemed to say.  _You need to be special in order to cut it too._

 

* * *

 

In the climate controlled offices, Thatcher got to work. Yorker had a list of complaints three times the size of his compliments. Hmm. Putting in a request to the main office for one of other trainers, he fast-tracked Alvin toward getting out. He looked over the complains again. He winced, forwarding three to HR. It was looking more like Alvin Yorker is going to be going back to making rich housewives happy. Probably by Friday.

————————-

Chris started at the Photograph of Lee. Hawker had an aura of emotions around the man. Subtle, but there they were. No one had talked about Hawker’s former pilot to him. For all Chris had known, Lee had retired.

But he knew that wasn’t the case. Not now. The way Kole was laughing. Kole had been dead serious yesterday. And that machine part looked like part of the mech’s left foot? Hm. One of those complex and oversized joints for sure. The man looked like an advertisement for masculinity. Stubble on the chin, smooth and well-formed chest. Arms like pythons. CHris felt an attraction to the former pilot. And surprise that.. that it is  _expected_  that he’ll have the same build.

He looked into the mirror, knowing that Hawker was sharing his vision at the moment. Technically, he could vaguely sense that the mech was in the motor pool. But he had -no- desire to get a head full of datafeed before tomorrow. <Yes sir. Emergency Training, 0700. I’ll download those chapters tonight.> At the mention of Yorker, there’s a definitive flash of anger. Chris wanted to deck the jerk. <I’ll eat more protein.>

He looked at his small, weak body. The way his smooth skin hugged his taunt form. Some muscle here and there. Nothing like Lee. But, Hawker did say it. Celn could be special. All it’d take, is giving everything to being the mech’s partner. His hands form into fists. <Sir.> He wanted to say something, but not be.. annoying. Rude. Full of confidence he wasn’t sure he could back up. <I won’t let you down.> Then he put the chair back in it’s home and walked out with the towel around his waist.

“Looking good rookie.” Laughed the two women in the main area of floor 8. Jane still, and a woman of Chinese descent. Chris gave them a playful wave. “Wearing a collar already? Geez. Just don’t sleep with it on.” Chris did a quick dress up, before going down to the mess for dinner. Triple protein. He is hungry, but he had to force himself to pack down the last of the stuff down. Ugh. Definitely needed to do breaks between eating that much in the future. He kept burping even after he got back to the 8th floor.

“So, why shouldn’t I sleep with the collar on?” He inquired. THe girls were both playing Halo 7. Jane was busy tea-bagging some member of the red team, while the Chinese pilot sword-rushed an enemy player off the edge of the map. “Cause then things get weird. The AI get to see your subconscious. Can’t really mess with you, maybe a little hypnotic suggestion. But it’s more that you’re dumping constant nonsense, at an uncontrolled rate, into a logical AI. Makes ’em grumpy.”

“Oh yeah. THanks. I need to get about 300 pages of procedures into my head so..” NIGHT! they both chime, concentrating on the screen. “Night.”

Chris shut the door of his room. On the desk, sat something new. Charging cradle for the collar. He thumbed the disconnect, waiting for it to shut down before taking it off. Less then five minutes later he is laying in bed. Alarm set for 0630, and the downloads queued up. He’d be hurting physically all day tomorrow..

8-{Chapter 3, What to expect when the worst happens..}-

 

* * *

 

Like a reflection out of the corner of his optics, Hawker could see Celn through his own eyes in the mirror. He was lean; quick and wiry and smooth. Scarred, also, from years out on the streets. Procedures. But memories of his own flashed too: a knife in somebody’s side; dodging a fist; scaling a wall to reach the safety of a second-story window as bullets dusted the concrete at his heels.

It was a wordless exchange, and the two of them suffered the imposing presence of the other for a few long moments before Celn broke the neurospace silence.

_< I won’t let you down.>_

In the motor pool, Hawker vented hard. Clenched his own immense fists. But his “voice” was quiet. <That’s what I like to hear, greenhorn.>

—

The mech was waiting in the crash room, surveying the equipment and rubbing his chin well before the scheduled time. It’d been almost eight years since he’d done these routines last, and the place was eerily similar to the last time that he was in here. One wall was outfitted with the facade of a 3-story building, the opposite end was piled with junked cars, and between the two was scattered concrete rubble. Off in the corner was an assortment of crash pads: thick slabs of foam to break the fall of a human at the mercy of gravity.

There would be two phases to this exercise: breaking neurospace under a variety of emergency situations as overseen by Colburn, and engaging with the mech as machinery. Celn would need to be able to scale every inch of the HLX-9, would be able to need to  _jump_  from any point on his body to the ground and land safely. He would also need to be able to make emergency boardings as well – say, leaping into Hawker’s hands from a third-story window during a firefight.

Today would be the day that Hawker officially touched Chris Celn with his hands for the first time as well. The mech had a hangup about it – it seemed below him, to manhandle humans who hadn’t earned his respect. But Celn, whether he could admit it or not, was beginning to earn his respect. He had to admit that he made it here to begin with – the other scabbers had been flimsy and feeble-minded. But Celn, well… he was a survivor. Perhaps a kind of soldier in his own way.

Panoptic sensors alerted him to a presence in the control room on the mezzanine, though. Hawker glanced over his shoulder and saw Colburn give a little salute through the thick glass. She fixed a headset into place and adjusted the mic.

“We doin’ alright this morning?” she asked, her voice sounding in his head.

<I’m ready to bust some balls, if that’s what you’re asking.>

He could see her laugh and shake her head. “You know what I mean, Big Nine.”

Indeed, he knew what she meant.

<It would be an impossible scenario to recreate in here,> Hawker effectively muttered.

“You plan on training for it at all?”

<I don’t know.>

Lee had ultimately died at the hands of a gang mech, another HLX-series; a knock-off made in Ukraine. Hawker’s DF2 OS had been offlined by a targeted EMP attack, his cockpit torn open to expose the fragile human inside, now piloting a dead machine with nothing but sheer force of will. What Lee should have done was maneuvered Hawker’s body to fall in a way that would provide cover as he escaped, discharging flares before making a run for it during the few seconds of confusion. But he didn’t. He fought to the bitter end trying to save them both.

“You should teach him how to fall, at least.”

<I plan on doing that much.>

Colburn nodded, and Hawker went back to choreographing.

 

* * *

 

Chris woke sometime around 2 in the morning. He’d fallen asleep connected to the training database. His mouth felt like a dumpster. Ugh.

Disconnect. He stumbled to the bathroom. Biological functions. Wash hands. Brush teeth. Stumble back into room 8A.

BREEP BREEP BREEP! *THUMP*

“uuuuuuuuugh…”

Chris ached. It was a struggle to sit up. He looked down at his body. No bruises. It felt like he’d been beaten. And he would know what that is like. “Buh.” he commented to the room.

Make bed. Shower. Two ibuprofen. Suit up. Someone left the TV on, was showing morning cartoons. Looked like He-Man. Skeletor’s shrill voice spoke as Chris snagged a juice. Apple this time. ‘And now, you muscle brained fool, Skeletor shall be the cause of your witless kingdom’s demise! Neh Heh Heh!’ Elevator took him down to the mess.

Protein shake. Eggs. Sausage. Bacon. One pancake. As the rookie packed the food away, one of the beat cops looked at him; noting the modified pilot suit that clung to him skin tight.

“How can ya eat that crap, kid?”

Chris looked up at the a guy who couldn’t’ be more then 10 years older. Maybe 30, 35? But.. damn did he look weathered. Chris smelled cigarette smoke. Stains on the fingers. A little pudgy. Holding a plate with doughnuts and bacon. Moustache.

THe rookie blinked. Swallowed, washed it down with the protein shake. “Tastes good to me.” And if to prove a point, he packed it a way while the other man shuddered. “Kid, ya know that stuff’s just reconstituted soy & whey proteins? The pancakes are cardboard. Only decent food around here are the doughnuts. They get baked and sent in. Along with the coffee.” Powered sugar sprinkled onto the front of the beat cop’s uniform.

Chris wiped off his mouth with one of the rough napkins. Tray on the pile, trash in the can. He got himself a styrofoam cup of coffee. Black. “You’re right. Coffee is great here.”

The man munched his doughnut and shook his head. Unless the kid had a cast iron gut, he’d be regretting eating from the stuff the robots in the mess made. You really couldn’t call it food!  
————————–  
Colburn watched the security feed quietly. So far Chris had been on time. She didn’t tell Big Nine, but she wasn’t going to let the greenhorn sleep in at least for the first month. After that point, she knew the AI would be happier to scold the pilot for her.

No one waiting to pounce on him this morning. Chris was expecting it today. He frowned, and walked through the winding hallways and the fluorescent lighting. How old were some of these sections? The station took up a huge amount of space. Probably because no one cared if it expanded into the crumbling buildings that make up the local area. He did manage to follow the signs into the room, pushing open the door at 0658. Early. For once.

He walked slower then before and listed to the left. Sore all over, and likely would be feeling it until he finally got some beef on his frame. Coffee, coffee, coffee! The stimulant at least got his brain kicking into gear. Chris took in the impressive sight of the crash room. “It looks like a school for stuntmen in here.”

Overhead, the Chief Engineer spoke over the PA. “You aren’t far off.” Chris turned, putting a hand over his eyes to try and see if Colbrun was alone int he booth. She seemed to be. “You won’t be getting rid of me for some time scabber. I get to watch and observe until we’re sure you’ve fit in.” Chris turned the hand into a thumb up in acknowledgement.

He walked up to Hawker, the mech looking taller and taller as he approached. About twenty feet from the mech, Chris felt tiny. How the hell could anyone hope to get away from Hawker, once the guns came out? It was a sobering thought, knowing that with just by taking a careless step, the mech could end him without noticing.

He pulled himself up straight and saluted.

“Reporting for training, Sir. Permission to board.”

 

* * *

 

The kid smelled like breakfast when he stepped in, looking refreshed. Well, as refreshed as he was gonna get for a while. He was about three pounds heavier than when Hawker last saw him, though – most of it just in the kid’s gut still, but some of his meals were already being put to work as tissue. Excellent.

_“Reporting for training, sir. Permission to board.”_

Hawker just popped his hatches and gestured for the kid to climb up.

“He always that serious?” Colburn asked the mech directly.

<Seems so. His professionalism is a nice change to what I normally see around here.>

His sensors told her she’d started laughing up in the observation room. After a moment: “You’re a match made in heaven, then.”

<You playing matchmaker?>

“Who, me?” She gave a tight-lipped smile and glanced away. “Never.”

Hawker shook his head, rolling his optics as Celn seated himself inside. The mech closed up, activated linkup procedures, and felt the metal plug slide into the hole in the back of Celn’s head and seat with a satisfying click. Neurospace engaged, with Colburn watching. Their consciousnesses met, danced, and sunk into each other.

It was getting easier.

“How’s the view, Chris?” Colburn asked after they’d settled down. “All the human stuff looks weird from that high up, doesn’t it? Well it’s like I tell my pilots, just pretend you’re a size-changing superhero or whatever. It helps to give the brain something to work with while you adjust.”

Hawker was sensing that Celn was looking at the room with a little disorientation; processing the cars like they were toys, the building like it was a dollhouse. Whatever worked, really. He knew they’d encounter this again the first time they’d be in the presence of another human while Celn was hooked up to the big mech. Usually pilots had to fight the urge to reach out and start poking at the person – usually Kole, who was a good sport about it – to make sure they were real. Colburn didn’t quite count, being in a dark room behind glass. It created the psychological illusion that she wasn’t really in the same place as the two of them, maybe even just a figure on a TV screen, depending on Celn’s level of dissonance. He’d learn, though. And from what the mech had seen so far, he’d likely learn fast.

<We’re going to start with basic maneuvering again,> Hawker ‘said’. <I’m dead weight. Get me from here to over there.>

—

It was about an hour of his pilot taking the helm, expanding his consciousness to fill more of the machine. They did this in the range, and after a little re-acquaintance, Celn was more or less able to move Hawker’s body as his own on the uneven terrain. By the end, they managed to cross 200 yards of broken concrete in all of 12 seconds.

But now it was time for the hard part.

“Chris, we’re going to start you learning quick-disconnect techniques,” Colburn said. “Let me see what you normally do, and I’ll give you some pointers on making a cleaner break. We’ll use that to practice the other emergency routines. Eventually, I’d like to see you go from full neurospace to stepping out onto the hatch in about 4 seconds. Any slower is a big liability for the both of you.”

 

* * *

 

Hawker had seen into Chris’s mind. As the rookie settled in and felt the secure embrace of the restraints surrounding him; he closed his eyes and let the connection complete.

When he opened them, Chris was 8 again. He could distinctly remember the last days before he’d been moved out of the foster home. He’d been well behaved, as good as any 8 year old boy. Something about the family he’d been with. They always were so nice to him. THen the public servants came. Chris never knew why they had to move him back into the public housing. Just that he never got to play with fun toys like those again. And he always had to share. He wanted to crouch down, put his hand over the car and move it while making engine noises with his lips. He wanted to touch the dollhouse, to play with the tiny life inside. Make it perfect.

Perfect.

Chris felt.. unprofessional. Briefly. That isn’t how a policeman acts. He took a deep breath and held it, exhaling the tension and the desire to be childish out with it.

He keyed the button that allowed him to speak. He didn’t feel right co-opting Hawker’s voice. Moving the mech’s face as his own. Them speaking together would be fine, but he felt too much respect and awe toward the AI to be so rude. This is Hawker. He is the pilot. One of the PA loudspeakers built into the mech keyed up with a soft chirp. “It does all seem so small.” he agreed “I’ll try to keep that in mind ma’am.”

————————————-

Chris wished he could do the whole, ‘Just pretend it’s your body’ thing. Even the manuals referenced that he should be able to subconsciously work the mech like his own limbs. But hawker is huge! Master Yoda might have said ‘size matters not’, but he was wrong. Hawker is LARGE! And Chris hand to think about moving those colossal limbs. Weird, uneven surfaces are easier, as he had to concentrate where to put each limb. The flat surfaces annoyed him, as just trying to imagine running didn’t quite work out. He’d thump the mech’s ‘boots’ against each other. He needed to learn to run, to move like the mech did. Like a guy who had way more muscle then the skinny rookie possessed. But he managed. Just keep those legs widely set, arms move outward, don’t try to draw them in. Hawker isn’t skinny!

————————————

He keyed the PA again. “Allright. Standard disconnect.” Hawker is taking it easier on him today and he is thankful. The mech wasn’t dumping the full feeds continuously into him, letting the human concentrate on the various tasks. Eyes closed, restraints up, connection off, hatch open. Perfectly reasonable course of action, and in the motor pool or the training courses, it’s fine.

The 15 seconds it took was not fine. Then it truly began, and the engineer’s ruthless drive for efficiency showed. Colburn was merciless! “This isn’t about pretty, Clean. You are diving into the mech while under fire. Jump in, plant you butt in the seat and hold still!” Chris stood on the lowest part of the entry hatch. For the sake of getting this part right, Colbrun wasn’t going to make him climb up each time. “Now, do it.”

Chris hauled himself in, twisting around with his hands and feet, pressing firmly against the seatback. Until now the restraining system and the automated helmet/interface had moved slowly. With mechanical whirrs and clacking joints that seemed soothing. There’d been the illusion that he could’ve escaped their embrace. With a high pitched whine, the multi-sectional system snatched him like a mechanical predator. In about a second! As the interface plate contacted his implant, the connection fired up and a frozen Chris faced the dual vision of the crash room and the closing of the chest plates.

“6.6 Seconds. MUCH better. You wasted time on the entry.” She fed video to the greenhorn, showing how he’d wasted precious moments putting down his feet several times. “I know you aren’t up to the physical requirements, but you should pivot on one foot, use your hands and fall back into place.” A standard disconnect. Then fast entry. Twenty six times! At that moment, AChris finally seemed to get it. Foot on door, hand to handle, turn, use free hand and foot to keep moment. Free hand and foot land on controls as I let go. Fall into seat with motion. Press the rapid interface button. Hawker could snap up around him, but it is better to have that last part ingrained into the procedure.

“4.8 seconds. I don’t think you’re going to get better until you’ve the strength to throw yourself around. It’s passable for now.” Coburn noted, her voice sounding pleased. She enjoyed Chris’s determination as well. “About that disconnect..”

—————–

Chris is perspiring, his vision blurry. He wanted to cry. The continuous breaking and initialisation of himself into the Deep AI’s neurospace had given form to a new kind of pain. He didn’t even know that it would be possible to experience his nerves being on fire. But that’s the sensation, or as close as he could put the unpleasant experience. “Again scabber!” came Colburn’s professional prodding. “You should be able to do this easily, and at least 20 a day. At speed.” With a growl, Chris lunged into the pilot’s chair. TUrn, foot and hand back, fall, initiate.

He is Hawker, 15 feet of — <Drop!>

Infinite Mirror Syndrome had been something to avoid yesterday. Now it greeted him like an old friend. At least it is a  _different_  kind of pain. THe restraining system pulled back, the connection severing as he pushed up, and fell onto his knees, chest hitting the lower place of the hatch. Wind knocked out of him, his arms, head and shoulders dangled over the edge. He coughed. Sucked in a wheezing breath as he winched, feeling embarrassed for tripping on the way out. <IDIOT!> he thought to himself, wiping a hand over his face. That drill had been perfect!

“D..” he rolled onto his side and slid in towards the cocpit, needing to take a break. He’d fallen onto one of the many lumps of protruding equipment and gotten a bruise on his ribs for sure. “Did.. I make it in time?”

 

* * *

 

The mech had been concentrating on the tasks at hand, and staying quiet – even quieter than normal. He attempted to limit the distractions that Celn would have having, because Hawker really  _did_  want the kid to get this down. This was important to him. This was a matter of life and death. No, this  _had_  been a matter of life and death.

 

The memories came, and he shielded them from Chris with stoic fervor. The last thing he wanted was to bombard the kid with his previous pilot’s memories of dying while he was trying to learn how to survive. He didn’t need to know what had been recorded into the mech’s black box from Lee’s last moments. Nobody did. But Hawker demanded they not be erased.

—

The weight of the machine falls into him as the EMP detonates, his consciousness ripped away and replaced with a searing void. Lee’s showered with sparks as the HLX-9, his  _partner_ , experiences a complete system failure. The great mech sways, lurches backward, and with a haggard cry Lee forces control of his friend’s body, grabbing onto the side of a building to keep upright. The panes of glass explode and rain down onto the street below.

“I need backup!” he shouts hoarsely into his comm mic, but it’s all static. Hawker’s radio had been taken offline too. He tries again. “I repeat, this is Davidson, requesting backup..!” It does no good.

With Hawker’s sensors offline, Lee’s sitting blind. He rips off the helmet, his head still locked into the cranial stabilizer, and reaches for a big red button hidden closely to the side of his seat, protected behind a plastic cover.

_BA-BA-BA-BOOM_

The hatches blow off, and the acrid stench of battle and machinery hits his nose. But there’s no time to get his bearings. The heavy  _CHUKKA-CHUKKA-CHUKKA_  of machine gun fire off to his right rips through the building beside him. Some of the bullets graze the smooth, geometric paneling of Hawker’s arm; others tear in, sending oil and coolant spatter flying.

It’s an HLX-6. A squatter, headless model; more tank-like, and with no personality to contend with. A true machine. Across its left shoulder is spray painted the blood-red red livery of the Barbarians: a battle-axe and severed leg. And Eastern European gang that got rich off the Siberian Wars.

Lee’s fingers deftly sail across the manual controls, flipping switches and smashing buttons. He’s trying to get Hawker’s body to arm its on-board weaponry, but most of it is offline, and something else is jamming. Lee takes a moment – a moment that feels like forever – as he stares down the barrel of that 50-caliber gun. His ears are ringing, but he can hear his eerily steady breath.

If he turns and runs, they’ll both get blown to pieces. But if he charges… there’s a chance that they could take down the Six before he kills any more good men.

He takes off at a sprint, headed straight for that barrel. Beside him, Hawker’s massive arms swing in time with his 18-foot strides. They reach out to grab the gun, wrench it away, but –

_Ka-choom._

Static.

—

Hawker forced himself to be fully present for the next exercises, forced himself to not think about what had happened four months ago. It was for Celn’s sake, he kept telling himself. This was serious.

—

The human inside of him was hurting. He could feel the pain radiate up into his own CPU, and to be honest, after so many rapid reinitializations, the mech was hurting too. He was cycling air constantly to keep up with the processing load, and… ah, fuck it.  _He_  had a mind just as much as the human, and he was mech enough to admit when he needed a break too.

For the umpteenth time, their connection severed with a dull stab to his primary cortex, just above Celn’s head, and out spilled the human. His own chest was heaving.

_“D-did… I make it on time?”_

“Not bad, scabber,” Colburn said over the PA. “3.9 seconds.”

“That’s… sufficient.” No, that was good. “We’ll do more of this next week,” Hawker said, his deep voice made a little bit deeper by his own mental fatigue. “Now c’mon.” He reached in and touched Celn’s shoulder with that massive finger, not really thinking about it. The kid’s body yielded so completely to even that smallest of touches. “Break for lunch, then I need to talk to you about Yorker.”

Meanwhile, Colburn was hastily updating the betting pool.

* * *

 

Colburn felt tremendous satisfaction as bets fell off the short end. Sure, those participating could buy back in, but the money stayed in the pot. She started to draft some possibilities, for  _after_ Celn got approved for duty. She’d seen how the rook pushed. If anything, he’d gotten more tenacious with a day’s break. Still, his vitals were once again looking like crap, and Hawker’s interface subsystem needed a reset and to clear the data caches.

Chris pulled himself up into a seated position. 3.9 is less then four. 4 is the goal. All he needed to do was throw himself into and out of the cockpit like a monkey. Inside the open cockpit, he could hear fans spinning fast to push air through the electronics. He dangled a leg off the edge of the chestplate, looking down at the floor. He did kinda wish Hawker was closer to one of the big foam piles. He wanted to fall into it and sleep.

Something pressed to Chris’s shoulder. He heard the sound of hydraulic and electric motors and actuators closeby. THe touch’s motions are gentle and friendly; like the way someone might put their hand on him’s shoulder, while smiling and saying ‘Good Job.’ Except that his make him twist, the force behind it could’ve pulverised bone. He turned his head, seeing the finger and hand of the robotic giant moving back.

He had never felt fear of Hawker, until that moment. That was barely a poke! The mech couldn’t easily flicked him twenty feet with that finger! Crushed him and.. no. Hawker wouldn’t. The mech wanted to break his new pilot in, not crush in an oversized fist.

_Break for lunch…_

He’d controlled those fingers. That hand. What would it be like to be held by Hawker? Other feelings came to him. Respect for the machine’s size. Other feelings worked around in the back of his mind. Ones he would need to spend a long, long time deciding on before he ever spoke to the AI about.

_..then I need to talk to you about Yorker._

That name dropped the bottom out of the rookie’s daydreaming, and he frowned. Asshole! If he had to spend weeks working with that cocking jerk, Chris is going to develop a grudge.

“Yes sir.” he said with a firm tone, “Will report back when I’ve eaten.”

Chris took his time going down, going easy on the rungs and footholds. He wanted to put and icepack on his implant, pour cold water onto his brain. He leaned forward as he walked out, left hand rubbing the back of his neck. He felt conflicted. He hurt. Gods, did he hurt. THe worst part was that when he tried to pay attention to anything, even concentrating on which elevator button to press, there was a flare-up of fresh agon in his mind. He whimpered, the doors closed and brought him up toward the mess. He pulled the phone from the padded chest pocket, sewn in where none of the restraints would crush it. “OKay google. Give me a 25 minute timer.” He didn’t want to stare at a wall for two hours while Hawker vented and fumed in the crash room.

Lunch was something like a casserole. Chris had to down two protein drinks to meet the dietary requirements he’d been given. The robots in the mess dutifully splatted a second portion onto his tray and he forced himself to finish. <High-grade protein drinks for sure. Something that doesn’t feel like watery cornflakes to eat.> He looked at the timer. 5 minutes left. He put his palms over his eyes and stared at the pretty patterns that formed in the darkness of his closed eyelids. He burped, trying to get a few minute’s peace.

 

* * *

 

Hawker paced in a loose circle to clear his CPUs. He dumped his cache, feeling the plug of unpalatable information sluice away into the ether. He felt like he could breathe better afterwards. Synched with 42’s servers to relieve himself of a little more mental burden.

 

Still, his processing centers ached. The mech rubbed at his chest like a human in a commercial with heartburn. It didn’t really help, and he wasn’t sure why he did it – hell, he wasn’t sure why he did a lot of the little things that he did – but he always chalked it up to having been designed by humans. He was a machine, but he was still one of them.

<How much you got riding on us now?> Hawker grunted at Colburn.

“Huh?” She dropped her data pad and played dumb. “Riding on who what now?”

<Kole told me already. And no, I didn’t tell the kid.>

She cleared her throat and shrugged. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” she said, looking away. “As of right now, I stand to walk away with 700 big ones.” She tried to keep from sounding proud of herself. “62 of us bought in, there’s only 16 now.”

<Anyone betting on if it kills him?>

“Actually, uh…”

Hawker went rigid and shot her a searing, dangerous look. She fell silent up in the booth, and the mech slowly walked over to the pile of cars. “I get real sick of this place sometimes,” he said with his mouth, the words dripping out with a scowl. His chest still burned, and he suddenly felt restless for something. He reached down for what was once a red sedan, fisting it and lifted it into the air. “I feel like I remember what military life was like…” He tossed it a little, the ton of crushed metal turning lazily in the air before he lifted his massive foot to give it a swift, cacophanous kick. It went sailing at a wall and collided with it at 80 miles an hour. The metal made a horrible sound before hitting the ground and coming to a rest. “…and I feel like that’s where I always needed to be.”

“You can’t go back and you know it,” Colburn said quietly.

He turned around to stare her down. “All I know is that its  _classified_.”

“It’s for your own good.”

“That’s what they keep telling me!” He picked up another car and smashed it into the other one. “It couldn’t  _possibly_  have anything to do with those  _special upgrades_ , would it?” he snarled.

“Hawker, you’ve just been cooped up in here too long. We need to get you back on the street. And if this is about Lee -”

He turned on his heel and stormed over to the observation deck, shoving his face uncomfortably close to the glass. His yellow optics bored holes into the little woman inside. “Don’t bring Lee into this.” He remembered the way Celn had flinched against his finger.

“Goddammit Hawker, it’s been about nothing  _but_  Lee for the past four months! You’re not the only one who lost a friend, you know!”

“You didn’t know him like I did!” The side of his fist collided with the window, and a spiderweb of cracks erupted from underneath it.

“ _HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker number nine-zero-eight-one, I **order**  you to stand down,_” Colburn bellowed over the PA.

Hawker stood there, staring at her as his fist slowly unclenched. The crash room was eerily silent. After a long moment he vented air, took a step back. Lowered his hand.

A blip in sensor range. The mech jerked his head toward the door, and there stood Chris Celn, so small. There was a look of shock on his face. Hawker immediately regretted his outburst. Where did that come from? How long had the kid been standing there? Why didn’t he notice?

“Celn –  _Chris_  – I…”

* * *

Beep Beep Beep Beep Bee—-*

 

Chris pocketed his phone, dragging himself out of the seat. Tray away, he got the robots to give him a back of ice cubes. Holding the clear plastic bag to his neck, he wandered back down toward the crash room. He didn’t even get to the elevator before Ferdinand caught up with him.

“Hey Chris! What’s with the bag?” His fellow pilot pressed the elevator button for the same basement level.

Chris spoke softly as the doors closed. “Fast connection and disconnection. Was doing the old in and out.” He waggled his eyebrows to imply something for more naughty.

“Oh man, emergency protocols. I hate that crap. Full cycle too? On a platform with an AI?” The mother man peered at the rookie. “Best I can do on a MRAV is 14 seconds. Not counting the whole, OMG, tank is on fire get out part.”

Chris turned a bleary eye on the veteran pilot, He took the ice pack off and let the condensation drip on the floor. “They.. they had me working to get it under 4. Seconds. Managed 3.9 when hawker sent me to eat.”

Ferdinand laughed for a moment, then his face froze. He reached out and poked at the interface. Chris winced. “Seriously? AI in, AI out in four? Also, you’ve got some inflammation around the implant. You should see a medic.”

Chris sighed, shaking his head. “3.9 Seconds, In and out of AI AND cockpit.” He put the icepack back on. “I”ll see a medic after I’m dismissed for the day.”

——————

Ferdinand followed Chris down the hallway, his own destination ignored. “Don’t screw with me rookie! You’re fucking with me? 3.9? Complete in and out?” THe other pilot had his phone out. Celn seemed dead serious. Looked like he’d been through it too.

Chris sighed, “Yeah. I think we did at least 70 full integration cycles. At least 30 of them were me getting time shaved off.” Ferdinand nodded. He busily tapped on the screen of his phone, filing a big bet on Chris making it. “Hey Ferd?”

“Yeah Chris?”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“What?”

“Don’t.. don’t let anyone know. Don’t say how I’m doing. I didn’t show up looking to be in an HLX-9. I woulda been happy running anything they gave me. Now though.. I’m scared. Scared they’ll say I’m not good enough. I mean.. look at me.”

Chris is kinda on the small side pilots. And small for a cop.

Ferdinand shook his head. “Rookie, nothing is a secret with Big Nine. Everyone in 42 watching you two to see–”

*BOOM!* *CRASH!*

Chris looked horrified that the other cops were watching him. The thought of failing now made him feel sick, like he might upchuck. There is legitimate green around his gills. Then the noises start. They both sprint down to the small lobby that empties onto the crash room.

_..classified!_

The two pilots watched as the mech tossed cars. CARS! like they were footballs. “Don’t go in there.” Ferdinand muttered. As far as HE is concerned, the big dog was about to get a newspaper from Colburn.

Chris whimpered. He put a hand on the push bar to open the door to the crash room. The other man put a hand on Chris’s shoulder, the same one the robot had touched. “You loco! Don’t go out there while he’s angry!”

Chris really, really hoped he wasn’t being stupid. Every instinct told him he needed to be 5 miles away or in that cockpit  _RIGHT NOW!_  “That’s my job. Stay back.” came the weary response.

Hawker in angry motion is like watching an angry god. THe machine’s movements made the room shake, the air filled with the sounds of it’s mechanical movements. CHris didn’t even have to think as he opened and closed the door quietly, those previous life skills welling up as he stayed closed to the exit.

How the hell is he going to talk the AI down?

 _“Goddammit Hawker, it’s been about nothing but Lee for the past four months! You’re not the only one who lost a friend, you know!”_  Lee. Chris is going to have to address that issue. Maybe he could speak to the AI quietly, stay linked up and forget the rest of today’s training?

 _“You didn’t know him like I did!”_ Chris flinched as Hawker punched! He feal real fear from the SPEED! How the FUCK? is something so big so quick? That had to be triple digit speed on impact! And the machine’s hand isn’t hut??

 _“HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker number nine-zero-eight-one, I order you to stand down”_ Chris DID know that one. One of the parts from Chapter 4, part 7 {‘So an AI that’s in your brain has decided to kill you. Possible means to not be smote.’}

Chris let the icebag fall onto the ground. He sure as fuck is cold enough now! Chilled to the bone! His instinct told him to run. Run the fuck out and let the mech get shut off for now. He’d never seen the AI be anything but cool or annoyed. Now he’d seen real anger.

But.. Hawker’s face. The mech’s expression squeezed his heart. The 15 foot engine of destruction looked horrified. Like how a pet owner looked when they stepped on their pet’s tail. He knew this is important. Some steel found it’s way into his spine, and the small human stood upright. THe implant on his neck burned along with the rest of his nerves.

“Hawker.” Chris’s face screwed up, he tried to smile and be sincere at the same moment. What the hell should he say to make things right? He felt responsible somehow. He looked up at the booth. “Ma’am. Permission to board the HLX-9 and speak with Hawker. I..” he swallowed, putting his hands behind his back and spreading his feet in a parade rest. “.. want to help. We work better together.”

* * *

Colburn eyed the rookie, wondering what his angle was.

 

_“We work better together.”_

_This is a little beyond your league,_  she wanted to tell him.  _Leave the broken machines to the techs to fix._  But did she or didn’t she have money on him?

Hawker hadn’t lost it like this since the funeral was over. The mech hadn’t just been invited, he’d lead the escort to the cemetery, he’d made the traditional last radio call, and he’d lead the three volley salute. She’d tried playing shrink here and there, but the AI wouldn’t have it. It seemed like he just wanted to move on.

Apparently not, though.

“Give it a go, Chris,” she sighed. “And Hawker,  _be nice_.”

—

The mech was bristling with shame, but he needed to set this right. Too many more outbursts like this and his days would be numbered, no matter how valuable he was.

He didn’t demand that Chris climb him. Instead, he stepped closer to the kid and gently descended into a kneel; quite the contrast to the damage he’d so easily done just now. His huge, black, five-fingered hand extended toward him, palm up, beckoning, hovering just above the floor. The invitation was obvious.

“I suppose I owe you an explanation,” he rumbled quietly.

 

* * *

 

Hawker had been standing at the now cracked windows. Then in just four purposeful strides he is looming over the human. The vibrations, the power! Chris is intimidated. Primal panic made his stomach tense and his adrenaline spiked.

The very air washed over him, blowing around him as the massive machine came down to his level. Seeing the HLX-9 kneel felt.. pleasing. Like he was being honored in some childhood fairy tale. Of course, Hawker’s face is  _still_  up there. Somehow, it seemed bigger up close. Then his gaze moved and he looked at the hand.

It wasn’t quite as long as the human is tall, but it is much broader. The mech could do more the hold the human in it’s palm. It could make a fist and hold him in that, with his head or feet sticking out. Chris is about 1/3 of the mech’s height, but the machine isn’t quite built to the standards of the human body. Larger torso for a cockpit and machinery. Broader shoulders. But Hawker is close to human, close enough to be considered humanoid. Chris brought his arms out from behind his back, boots crunching on the dirty floor as he walked up. The boots clumped on the metal surface of the palm, the same hand that’d punched the glass.

Thankfully the hand wasn’t laid flat, and Chris sat down; feet on the wrist, holding onto the thumb with his back toward the upturned fingers. He knew Hawker would be careful, but he sit didn’t want to risk falling and having to be caught.

“Yes. We’ve not had a chance to talk about anything aside from my training. And we’ll go back to that. Right now you and I need to speak about Lee. I’m comfortable doing that face to face. And I can go inside, and we can think about it if you’d prefer.” Chris knew the AI had an ego as big as the mech inhabited. He knew how to be the small, supportive figure. He just had to be careful and not appear too vulnerable. Hawker needed him strong.

“We will figure out how to make this work, so you can go back to grinding my mind with your processors.” He winked. “When you aren’t pawning me off to learn to shoot or get yelled at by a gym rat.” he smiled then, warmly. Confidingly to his partner.

 

* * *

 

What Colburn knew and perhaps Chris didn’t was that the stand down command could be overridden. Deep Field 2 left a lot of room for autonomy – perhaps too much, depending on which Washington shill you asked – but Hawker hadn’t been seized by some programming code designed to break the spell of a negative emotional feedback loop. When he stepped away from that window, he’d simply chosen to reaffirm the chain of command and follow orders.

Because if he couldn’t be a good soldier – now a good  _cop_  – he was nothing.

—

Somehow this felt different than all the other times he’d picked somebody up. It was usually business. Or more rarely, camaraderie. He’d picked up Lee many countless times, and it was… natural. Normal. They were each others’ co-pilots and friends. It was just what The Boys did.

Chris was smaller than Lee; like a whippet to Lee’s bulldog. There was no time to be thrilled by the smallness and fragility of humans, by Chris’s hands on fingers as thick around as the kid’s bicep, the scrape of boots on his smooth wrist plating. There was no time; he had a job to do.

“We’ll talk… with you inside. No neurospace.” It would give him the barest sense of distance that he needed, being able to feel Chris but not see him. Surrounding him, enclosing him in a harsh, machine embrace.

_“We will figure out how to make this work, so you can go back to grinding my mind with your processors.” He winked. “When you aren’t pawning me off to learn to shoot or get yelled at by a gym rat.”_

Hawker looked at the kid with vague suspicion, cocking a brow plate with the frown still on his face.  _Pawn off..?_  The barest hint of a smile tugged at one side of his mouth and he shook his head a little.

Slowly he rose to his feet, not taking his eyes off the tenacious little ball of organic tissue in his hand. “Last I checked,” he said, standing at his full height now with Chris not anywhere near eye-level, “I was still captain, greenhorn.”

Then he popped his hatches.

 

* * *

 

Celn is doing his absolute damndest to present a carefree and relaxed facade. Inside his stomach rolled and sweat dribbled down his spine were it met the piloting suit. He’d lied to cops plenty, now he is doing something far more difficult. Telling the truth! While lying about his physical state. His hand rubbed the finger affectionately, giving a squeeze when he’d been drawn upward.

The truth is that he felt that he owed Hawker. Owed the big mech for giving him a chance. He knew he had an amazing future before him, IF he could keep the mech on it’s feet and himself in it’s good graces.

_“I was still captain, greenhorn.”_

“Yes Sir. You are my superior.. officer.” he made the pause between superior and officer long enough to be interpretable. WHat he could have meant in that moment could be any number of options. BUT, he was not being coy about his position in the budding relationship. He considered Hawker to be the boss. In control.

Chris waited until that hand is close enough to the open cockpit before getting up to enter. The morning’s training must be sticking, as he rapidly dumped himself in position, his hand landing on the interface control buttons. He had to stop himself from linking them together. He stroked over the seat, wiggled on the comfortable padding. He waited until the hatch began closing before he spoke. He’d be locked inside, where no-one could hear their conversation. This is as private as a conversation can be get.

“You tell me about Lee. You tell me how you feel about him. Tell me about how it all ended. I’m going to be your new pilot or die trying. So, we’re going to do.. do a thing.”

he cleared his throat. “I don’t have any kind of professional training in this. But I have talked friends out of bad trips. And you probably can still feel how it happened. YOu and I are going to figure a way out. We’re gonna play through it. And I’m going to be a live on the other side, and so are you. Then you’re going to remember how we did it, each time you’re feeling for his loss.”

Chris had a tremble in his frame, fear about being so.. so commanding to the machine! He hoped the AI didn’t throw him out now. He hoped that by being the the vulnerable position he is, that Hawker would be willing to listen.

 

* * *

 

_“I’m going to be your new pilot of die trying.”_

Hawker almost flinched at that.

_“We’re gonna play through it.”_

He gave pause, now noticing the trembling in the kid’s body. Hawker rumbled, scowled, let his hand rest against the front of the cockpit for a moment. Was Chris  _scared_  of him? The thought made him angry, but no… no, it had to be a little more complicated than that. He hoped so.

“The bond between pilot and machine is deep and enduring,” he said on the inside, not moving his lips. “It’s a kind of brotherhood that words and data can barely begin to describe.” God, this was sounding like a fucking eulogy.  _Turn it around._  “In time, you might be lucky enough to have that.” An uneasy pause. Cycling air. Hands at his sides, fists to keep his fingers busy. “Neurospace,” he said, a quiet command. He hadn’t intended on doing this; he was simply going to… what? Tell him who Lee Davidson was? Like that would have done any of him justice. That would have been merciful, though. “You’ll find what you’re looking for there.”

Hawker spent the next few seconds preparing himself to regret what was about to happen, what the kid was about to see and experience. He didn’t need that. Nobody needed that.

But Chris dutifully pressed himself back into the seatback, and Hawker gently grasped him by the scalp before sliding in. He felt like the protagonist of some Shakespearean tragedy, stroking and embracing a child or a lover as a kind of act of penance before running them through with a sword. They linked without much fanfare, and all was quiet blackness before the mech fetched the contents of the black box and like Pandora, let the horrors out.

—

Chris Celn had been Lee for an agonizing 3 minutes and 48 seconds – the last 3 minutes and 48 seconds that the man had spent as a cogent, loyal, and heroic peace officer. He felt his terror, his pain, his exhaustion, his desperation. He also would have felt his strength and extreme capability, but they were easily overshadowed.

Hawker waited for Chris to recover. It took a while. Somewhere in his CPUs he felt numb and distant, knowing he should have been there to coax his pilot back to stability again, but something in him couldn’t do it right now. So he waited, still as stone, head hung low, and thought about this could very well kill Chris Celn too.

 

* * *

 

 _..deep and enduring.._  Heh.

Chris had a very different idea on just how he’d be approaching Hawker’s ‘holy vision’ of interfacing. It sounded like something that’d been programmed in. Or military blarg, the shit that generals would spout over the coffins of soldiers trying to justify wars that never end. Didn’t sound like anything that he’d experienced. There’d been no brotherhood with Hawker. Just the Hammer and Anvil of the mech and AI pounding the weak human. He rubbed his hands over his face, exhaling and centering himself.

He really didn’t want to relink. He is hurting, and he didn’t care what is about to hit his brain. He just wanted to not hurt. The mechanics of the restraints were slow. It took well over forty seconds before the interface plates met up, and almost a minute before it seated. Was Hawker picking up on his emotions? Did the mech not want to be plugged into him anym—*

Chris never really knew that such  **VIVID REAL HOLY SHIT I’M LIVING IT WHAT THE FUCK**  mental transfers existed. He’d never been hooked up to another human. Never seen inside of a fully visualized death.

He’d felt death though. Death from an overdose, feeling the world go weird. Death from the cold shutting his body down.

Lee was astounding! Chris felt the strength in the man, a man who had arms bigger then Chris’s thighs. The man commanded and was the AI’s equal. He could feel and follow along, his heartbeat syncing up with Lee’s. He worked himself through the motions, seeing Lee as an idealised version of himself. Lee came from a heroic background. He and Hawker had good goo int he world, then came home to fix one of the worst places, to stem the tide of lawlessness that filled the country. Chris could feel the pain coming. Hawker had watched this enough that the moment of the EMP had been slowed down, each second analised to try and figure out some means of escape.

But it hit. THen everything changed. No more multi-sensory vision. Just the Cabin. Lee and Chris moved their hands in unison, touching the same controls, establishing manual control. THe cockpit in Lee’s echo had been wrenched open. In the distance, the other machine mech lumbered and wallowed in destruction. Enemy and allied combatants fought. He and lee looked down at the weapons. Nothing functioning, they had to stop this menace! Lee grappled with the enemy, and CHris tried to help, then the both died.

<Again.> He spoke to the darkness.

Uncertianty?

<Play the recording again!>

It restarted. It happened a second time. A third. Each time CHris tried different rounds of action, different ways to help Lee. In the end, their bodies lay in ruins. THeir guts spilling out.

In the cockpit, CHris’s nose bled into the mask over his face. He game dangerous close to losing sync. His heart beat rapidly and irregularly. Stopping entirely at the same moment as Lee’s.

<Again!> A fourth death. <AGAIN!>

Then, the two pilots broke apart.

The heroic charge, the sacrifice of self over others, victory, the belief that he and the HLX-9 are indestructible! Lee went on to die.

“NOPE!” Chris has no such aspirations anymore. “FUCKIN’ NOPE!” He turned! This is not how a soldier fights in war!

Chris, is no soldier.

Gripping the control sticks, still lost in the vision of the past, he turned the mech and he RAN! He ran from battle! Putting that back armor between him and the threat. The retreat left the allied soldiers to fall, but they’d died anyway with Hawker and Lee destroyed. “Need guns! No guns left!” The vision from the memory was fading. Lee was dieing to the hands of an AI in a lesser mech. A GHost.

And here, a new alteration is unfolding, a different end to the memory, and alternate path. They stood over the ruins of a building. Chris bent the machine down, picking up an I-beam and wrenching it free. In the other he grasped an engine from a ruined car. He lobbed the engine upward, like a tin can. I-beam in both hands, he swung it round with the force of a seasoned sandlot player. *CRACK!* The block went flying, impacting into where the enemy mech was killing Lee. As the ghost of the past faded, Chris found himself holding up the side arm, covering the retreat of their allies. “C’mon you fools! Get out while the gettin’s good!” Came his youthful snarl of the PA.

The warn torn past faded back into the crash room…

 

* * *

 

Over and over and over again Hawker and Chris relived that recorded memory of the dead man.

Distantly, he watched, endured, as the human lived it. Then, as he struggled against it. Then, as he sought to  _change_  it.

Hawker… didn’t know that what Chris was doing could be done. But, he wasn’t human either. It seemed to him, as the data passed around him like a howling wind, that this sort of thing could only be accomplished with wetware. There were things in that memory that the mech knew he could never fully know, but now it was looking like the entire thing was an open book to the younger, smaller, rougher human inside of him. Hawker remained silent, mesmerized. Then memory began to  _change_.

No, that’s not what Lee did…

_Where are you…!_

The AI couldn’t control the memory like Chris could, and Hawker suddenly felt acutely like a prisoner. Claustrophobic.  _Get me **out**. This is not how it ends!_

As Chris’s hands moved in time with the ghost controls in his encounter with a long-gone enemy, Hawker tried getting away from the hijacked memory itself. He staggered backward in the crash room, horrified and enraged at what was happening now. Chris’s voice sounded in his head as he taunted those ghosts, for him as real as the chair he sat in, and Hawker backed into the wall, chipping concrete.

It faded. The reel ended for the last time, and inside of him, where in a human a beating heart would be, sat Chris Celn, sneering and barking his triumph.

The mech stayed frozen for a few seconds, a minute, then he abruptly pulled the plug on their connection. It hurt them both, but it didn’t matter. The hatches blew open, the restraints flew off, and Hawker knelt deeply for the sole purpose of letting the kid tumble out of him and onto the ground. Vented heat blew dust into Celn’s face, and Hawker rose to his feet as the scabber was left to figure out what the  _fuck_  just happened.

“You’re dismissed,” he said, veiling his rage. Rage at what? Didn’t matter. “Training tomorrow at 0500. Looks like I’ve got a lot to teach you about  _respect_.”

 

* * *

 

If Chris had seen how Hawker acted, knew the real reason why the connection had been slow to start? Knew if the AI had been touching it’s chest, demonstrating how it cared for him? He might had at least been more respectful. Maybe.

Chris didn’t know where he sat. His eyes swam in a part of the memory that didn’t exist. And it’d been  _EDITED!_  His own mind had skewed the black box data. The recording now lasted 4 minutes, 18 seconds. Lee still died. But in the same recording, they’d been a divergence. When Hawker next watched it, or it came unbidden into the AI’s thoughts, the option Chis had created envisioned led to a means to let the AI’s pilot survive. A way to live. A way that led to the kid being the pilot of HLX-9.

This had been another kind of training to the rookie. And situation where Hawker gave him an impossible task and it had been expected of him to excel at it. That’s all Celn felt about editing the sacred memory. He didn’t have the connection to Lee, didn’t feel the heat of the moment. This is a decision that came from knowing where certain death lay. He’d chosen differently. He’d succeeded where Lee’d failed, and did it by following his own instincts.

A pilot that would retreat from combat, retreat from impossible odds, but still look for a way to win.

“ARRRRRRgggggggh…..!” Chris cried out as the connection dropped for the 77th time that day. His hands went to the implant the moment the restraints went free. It felt hot, like it is burning his flesh.

Hawker ‘vomited’ him out onto the dirty floor of the crash room. Dirt mixed into the blood coming from Chris ‘s nose… It’d pooled in the mask, giving him some kind of grotesque goatee of bloodstains. He curled into the fetal position, tears of pain dripping from his eyes as writhed in acute and intense agony. Felt like he is being stabbed in the neck!

_“Training tomorrow at 0500. Looks like I’ve got a lot to teach you about **respect**.”_

Chris felt fear now. Fear motivates. Fear got him on his knees, then his feet. Tomorrow would be the range and the gym. Yorker would be preferable to facing down linking up again.

He coughed a sob, feeling the pain begin to subdue. Felt like, kinder, gentler stabs to the neck. He turned just enough to let Hawker see half his face. Enough that the pain, the tiredness, the confusion of his expression could be seen. The tears cut through the lines of dirty blood. “Yes sir. 0500.”

Then Chris stumbled out. Away from the Vanguard Class Mech. It hadn’t been that long, but Ferdinand is gone from the prep room. Either he or Colburn had messaged the aid station, because there was that medical droid waiting. “Officer Celn,” it drone “Please accompany me to medical. If you cannot walk I will carry you.” Chris leaned on it’s shoulder, a hand on his implant. He didn’t even argue. “I hurt. Too many initializations.” he admitted.

“This is known. You will submit to a full body scan, and may be placed on medical suspension if your implant or the nerve tissue is damaged.” Chris nodded. He wanted to sleep. “Yes. Just get me up there.”

Minutes later, he lay naked on a scanner. He’d been given a shower, washed by the medical drive. He is damp under his arms and between his legs still. Behind his head robotics moved, analyzing the interface implant and the angry bruised skin. Physically, he needed time to rest and recover. He’d been given anti-inflammatories and mild painkillers with the hypospray. He had bruising on his chest and shoulder. The medical droid pulled a smock over him, goving him the semblance of modesty. Chris heard footsteps.

He felt like.. he didn’t know what to feel. 0500 tomorrow. This wasn’t over. But .. he wasn’t sure if he’d made a difference.

 


	4. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Hawker thinks he's beginning to hate Chris for what he did in the crash room.

Hawker pinged the door to his exit and stormed out, leaving Celn standing there, still reeling. The blood mingling with the tears on his face, mingling with the  _fear_  and  _confusion_  in his eyes, his parted, panting mouth, seared into the mech’s memory cortexes, fueling his maelstrom of emotions, but he didn’t say another word.

The mech was on a rampage. He needed to get out, get away from these same concrete walls, these same goddamn people.

Eventually he found himself in his ‘office’, where the windowless dark and hum of servers provided a temporary respite. That warm quietude was disrupted when he brought his fist to meet the wall beside him before sliding down to seat himself on the floor and put his head in his hand.

There was a few minutes of stinging emptiness before the inevitable comm interrupted.

“Hawker, would you care to explain what in the  _fuck_  just happened?” It was Kole, and he wasn’t happy. “Colburn told me while she was rushing to see Celn in  _medical_.”

<Scabber asked for it,> the mech growled in reply.

“That’s not an answer, captain.”

A hard vent. <He asked to see the black box. I… showed it to him. Thought he might begin to understand what happened. We –  _he_  – plowed through it a dozen times until I ejected him.> Hawker had never ejected anyone to his knowledge – that was something only a lesser, malfunctioning AI would do. Under any other circumstance, it would be a dangerous, dishonorable, and damn foolhardy thing to subject a pilot to, but the way Hawker said the words… Kole knew something about the experience had triggered his survival instinct.

“Why did you eject him?”

The mech ‘spoke’ quietly. <He  _changed_  it, Kole.> A pause, then, enraged again: <He  _changed it!_   **My**  memory, dammit! And now I’m never getting it back!>

Kole was silent for a whole minute, before he spoke again in slow, measured words. “You should have deleted those files four months ago.”

<I swear to god, sir, if you ->

“That memory’s not yours  _either_!” the sergeant barked. A deep breath. “I know he rehabilitated you, saved you from getting boxed after Siberia. I  _know_  he spent a year teaching you to be damn-near human again. I know how seamless your connection was, how perfectly synchronized you were in neurospace. I know how he chose work over his marriage. I know how many raids you led together, how much scum you brought in. I know, Hawker.  _I was there too._  And I was there in the shit with you two when he was blown into a coma.” A pause as he took a breath. “All any of us has got is memories. You don’t do him any justice by clinging onto that data like a saint’s goddamn reliquary, Hawker.” One last pause. “Lee would be ashamed to see what it’s done to you now.”

Oil and coolant surged, his finger was on the hair trigger of some state of mind. What did they do with emotionally unstable AIs? Ah yes, junked ’em. They could do too much damage. Kill too many people.

“And from what it sounds like, Chris Celn was only trying to  _help_.”

Chris Celn. Who was he? Some scruffy kid from the street who was only here for the steady paycheck and a chance at retirement? No… no. Chris was brave, determined, he wanted to do good. No, that wasn’t quite right either. No, he was somewhere in between. Imperfect, but moral… running from his past just like everyone else in 42.

Fluid pressures leveled. Air cycling steadied.

“Whether he stays or goes is entirely up to you, captain. It’s not my job to get between a mech and his pilot. But you need to make up your goddamn mind.”

<Yes, sir.>

The comm ended and it was Hawker’s turn to figure out what the  _fuck_  had just happened.

 

* * *

 

Colburn made a note to have the elevators overhauled. They are too damn slow! She sent a text to Kole. ‘Medical, AFTER you talk with the Deep Field 2.’ She knew he likely already was on the line. Or at least, about to phone up the mech.

Logically, she knew that it wasn’t over. Hawker had issued a training time for the next day. SHe felt a pang of guilt too. SHe shouldn’t have let them link after lunch. She should have stopped the connections after 50 cycles. But the kid refused to back down! The light green walls of medical opened up to her fromt he elevator. She walked toward the back section where the pilots would be treated. She knew that the scabber would be scabbing back up after today.

——————-

Chris had his eyes closed. He felt like he is laying on a cloud. His heart tingled.

Opioids are fantastic. Felt like 150 unit pills. He’d gotten two. The taste is very, very familiar. He’d crushed them between his teeth, letting the bitter flavors sink into his gums tongue. Like the old days. He drank the water, only because the drone wouldn’t stop pestering him about it. Outside the small cubby where he lay, there is a conversation happening behind a plastic curtain. The voices are quiet.

“Chief Engineer Colburn, ma’am. Medical 07-C reporting.”

Her voice is firm, she took in a breath from the run she’d just done. “What is his status?”

“Physical bruising and minor trauma to soft tissue. Well within operational limits. Inflammation to nerves, spinal column and nanodendrite links. Recommend waiting 12 hours to see what results from treatment. Recommend eliminating interfacing until site reduces inflammation. Pain and inflammation treated with medication.”

It paused, enjoying it’s job. It knew that the woman would want a prognosis, and it cut her off with it as she opened her mouth to ask. “Unknown time of recovery, likely within 48 hours. Patient is young, recovery expected to be rapid.”

Colburn scowled. Was it messing with her? She had more important issues to deal with. “Thank you 07-C. Please continue watching him.”

Chris felt tired. He drifted off on a high he hadn’t felt in years.

———————–

Kole and Colburn stood in medical, examining the results of the day’s activities. He watched the ugly scene unfold again, starting with when Hawker lost his temper the first time. He frowned as it left Celn and stomped off.  
“This isn’t good.” he started. “We’ve been covering for him for months. I’ve gotten wind of rumors.”

Colbrun raised an eyebrow. “They wouldn’t. They’ve spent too much on 42. On Big Nine.”

Kole let a crooked grin turn up his lips. “I said rumors.”

Colburn chuckled. “OH!” THe chuckle turned into a laugh! “That won’t work. Not enough room in an HLX-9 for two pilots and no AI.”

Kole nodded. “Try telling that to a bureaucrat who can’t work his cellphone.”

Colburn’s smile turned into a frown. “You’re joking.”

Kole shrugged, turning the conversation aside to the present. “I said rumors. And they’d try other pilots too. We’ve got almost two years. Then it will be election time.” That mean politicians making promises. And getting Big Nine out, if it wasn’t, would be a promise. “Looks like our rookie went through hell.” he flipped through the day’s reports on his datapad. “Again.”

Colburn had a sly smile on her face. “He’s succeeding.”

“And when he doesn’t? He’s got a history. THe only thing keeping him clean and honest is a drive to prove himself. What’ll happen to Celn if Hawker rejects him?”

Kole let the question hang in the air.

“I can’t make it any easier on the greenhorn. This  _is_  Hawker’s show.” Colbrun frowned still. She’d been thinking about this too. Silence for a minute.

“Look, we can make his life outside of the mech easier.” she offered.

“How so?”

“Make sure he’s busy. Don’t let what he’s going go to his head. Try not to let him have time to brag. THe schedule he’s on is fantastic. He’s worn out in his off time.”

Kole thought about it. He smirked. “Put him in the marines, then?”

Colburn nodded. Somewhere far off, they heard Chris shout! “FUCK! Ow ow shit fuck ow dammit!” Likely the droid applying topical treatments. Those stung around the implant. Led to the scabbing, probably brought back memories of the surgery to the rookie.

Kole looked at the reports from yesterday. His smirk turned into a grin as he read about the Yorker situation. “Well, you do your part. Until he can link back up, you have him do maintenance on Nine. Mop up his own sweat and fix the paint if need be. I can’t spot him in the gym, don’t have the time.” He thought back to his days as a drill sergeant.

He could see having someone to growl at again. It brought back happy memories. What a great way to work out frustration! “As much as I’d like to shout at a boot again.” They both chuckled at that. “I’ll see if I can get someone better though.” He looked at the still images of Chris’s face. Of Hawker’s face. There is a connection for sure. “I think I know *just* who can motivate our pilot-to-be like no one else.”

 

* * *

 

“I’ll be  _what?_ ” Hawker said with a grimace from where he stood, straight and tall on the maintenance slab. Kole was visiting in-person.

“Most of your time with Celn has so far been in neurospace. In retrospect, Colburn and I decided that was a damn stupid thing to allow. You wouldn’t get married after a one-night-stand, would you? Don’t answer that. Of course you don’t.” He flicked his finger across the screen of the datapad and continued. “I’m queuing up a few homework assignments for you to download this evening, what with Yorker getting let go and all…”

Hawker ‘glanced’ in the direction of the queued files and looked them over. His white, gleaming face scrunched up amid the black of his helm and broad shoulders. “You want me to play  _PE instructor_  now? Sir, with all due respect…”

Kole waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t wanna commit, Nine? You know where the termination paperwork is. And then you can do all of this all over again with the next scab.”

The mech glowered, having been caught. It never even occurred to him to look for another pilot, did it? Celn had become his ticket out. Even through the misery that was today, it idea never presented itself. It was do or die, and something about the kid… well, there was something about the kid he approved of.  _Liked_ , even. He wasn’t sure what it was right now, but there had to be something, otherwise he  _would_  have fired him already.

The sergeant raised a salt-and-pepper brow at the mech’s silence and chuckled. “You’re even stubborn when you have no idea you’re being stubborn.” He tucked the pad under his arm. “Tell you what, Hawker. You put another 5 pounds on that kid, you teach him to stop, drop, and roll, and you figure out a way to be the superior officer when he’s pissing you off, and I’ll get you into the security detail at the mayor’s office in two weeks. How’s that sound? You gonna get your shit together and give this thing a real fightin’ chance or what?”

Standing around city hall and shooing away loiterers for eight hours sounded like the worst job in the world, but by god he would give anything to do it right now. Even though the idea of facing Celn again made him feel disgusting.

“You know me, sir,” Hawker said in that rumbling voice. “ _Fightin’_  is what I do best.”

Kole flashed his pearly whites and gave the big machine a wink. “That’s what I always liked about you, Hawker. As dependable as an old Ford and as dry as a martini.”

The mech rolled his eyes, not wanting to laugh. “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t mention it,” he chuckled, already on his way out. Then a shout, from near the far door: “I don’t wanna hear from any of you – you, Celn,  _or_  Colburn – for the next two days. I’ve got interrogations to do and a forensics team to babysit. So whatever your problems are, you need to figure it out your damn selves!”

“Will… do, sir.”

The door shut, Kole was gone, and Hawker vented like a long, wheezing sigh. It was going to be a long two weeks.

He waited a few hours before sending a text message to Celn’s phone:  _Change of plans. Report to the motor pool at 0900. Colburn recommended a few more hours’ recovery._  As curt as always.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Medical 07-C quietly stood in it’s charging alcove. From here it could monitor the many parts of the medical floor, along with the other nearly identical androids. They communed quietly amongst each other, sharing and passing back and forth notes on their cases. Chris Celn had a problem. There is the possibility of neural scarring. Scarring could mean the loss of the implant. Or, the inflammation could go down and he might be fine. They considered their other issues, including the dietary difficulties provided with the food from the mess.

<You want us to what?> queried the main AI cluster that ran the consumables for 42. It ran the food system utterly, from ordering to vending machines to ensuring the trash cans got emptied. Except for the coffee and doughnuts. Those came from a separate source. After all, caffeinated hot beverage 37F is a superior drink. It just wished more then 8 humans would consume it. It tried to suggest it whenever the coffee supply ran low.

<Officer Chris Celn requires 85%protein, 14%carbohydrates and 1%vitamin in 1375 calorie meals. At his rate of 3 meals per day. When he has reached a mass of 170 to 175 pounds, reduce content to 935 calories per meal. Keep the proporational levels equal.> Explained the medical gestal AI from their knowledgeable position.

<He’ll get fat!> The vending service protested, despite the fact that Chris hadn’t so much as bought a single one of it’s delicious and refreshing sodas.

<Negative. And this must be provided in 1.5 pounds of food per meal. Officer Celen has approximate stomach volume of 1.75 cubic feet.>

<…how much?>  
<What?>  
<How much?>  
<Re-buy of $100 on achieving integration. Previous bet failed on day 1. Current win will achieve profit of 300%. Chief Engineer Colburn only better in original pool to have chosen this outcome.>  
<…>  
<Vending complies. Re-buying in with $100 on the same bet.>  
<You’ll only achine 200% profit!>  
<Unless more buy back in. Setting Officer Celn to ‘accidental’ healthy choices for all vending machine outlets.>

———————–

Chris had fallen asleep sometime in the afternoon. He woke around 2. Even before he’d gotten to his feet, the medical droid appeared and helped him to the bathroom. That was embarrassing. This time he’d been given ibuprofen for the pain. It’d taken him back up to his bedroom, and pointedly handed him his phone. “Your pilot suit is undergoing cleaning and repair.”

The rookie read over his messages. He set his alarm for 0800. Then he stood still as it’d re-bandaged him. “Thank you.” He could feel a layer of slipper, topical ointment on the interface. It felt cool now.

“Your rating of A class is insufficient.” the medical droid spoke, gesturing at the plastic-framed, printed paper on the sparse desk. “And do not use the wireless transmitter. You are not to interface for at least 48 hours.” it disposed of the bandage remains and stored the supplies on it’s built-in backpack.

“That.. that’s all they tested us too.” A tired Celn responded, pulling back the covers on his bed. He hadn’t bother to put on underwear. He just wanted to get back to sleep. Laying down, he pulled the covers up. And the fact that a medical droid had come to his dorm room.. medical staff that usually were to busy to even come off their floor.. didn’t register weird with him at all.

“After you have healed, you will be re-tested to determine you still rank at A class.” It assured him, turning off the light and closing the door. When it’d returned to the medical level, it rejoined the collective. <Not a record typo, A Class. Not tested Higher.> The collective mused. That would explain his resilience. Celn should have been ranked specialised from the start. Still, they’d get a better grip on his anomalous success with further observation. That would sooth the embarrassing error of their first prediction.

———————

Chris wore his academy sweats into the mess. As he looked over the menu, he grimaced. Sense when did liver count as breakfast meat? “I’ll have a number 4, double sausage. And a Protein drink. Chocolate, please.” he grabbed a tray and placed it under where the food would splatter out unceremoniously. The back of the unit pulled way, and he briefly aw into the kitchen where the many arms and appliances were worked by the culinary robots. His tray got nabbed by a metal-fingered hand, and a different one placed within about 15 seconds before it sealed back up. “Breakfast is served.” droned the AI.

“Uh… thanks?” He sat in the mostly empty room in his usual, facing the wall spot. The eggs looked like eggs. THe bacon looked crispy, chewy. The toast crumbled. He inhaled the food, barely appreciating the subtle flavors. The protein drink was heavy, sucking it down was like a milkshake and just as satisfying. Feeling slightly guilty.. he brought the try to his face and licked up the remains. He didn’t know what eggs benedict was, but he’d remember the flavor for weeks. Anyone see that? No? Good. Bottle recycle, try in the stack of dirty ones. He went down to the motor pool as instructed.

At 0855, trainee Celn stood before the looming form of Hawker. His neck had bandages. The veins grew in an angry blue spiderweb from the hidden implant. Red and pink puffy skin mixed in, adding to the rich patina of discomfort. He burped into his coffee. He’d eaten far too fast. It’d tasted amazing though.

“Officer Celn, reporting for training. Sir.” his voice came out calm, respectful.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t late this time, at least.

Celn stood on the concrete floor of the motor pool, stained by oil, scuffed by rubber, and chipped, cracked, and re-sealed more times than anyone could count. Aside from three guys working on a squad car and taking their time about it, the place was empty. It was Saturday. If Celn ever had a weekend, he wouldn’t anymore. It would be this, six days a week, and he’d either learn to love it or it would drive him insane.

_“…reporting for training. Sir.”_

Hawker eyed him, his mouth drawn into a tight line. He saw the bandages, which covered up most of the ugliest stuff, but the angry veins crept out from underneath and the kid’s eyes were bloodshot. Even now, after eating, he spoke with a dry mouth. The mech remembered yesterday vividly, and his fluid pressure rose.

_Whatever your problems are, you figure it out your damn selves!_

Alright then, so What Would Kole Do? He averted his yellow optics as he thought; a uniquely human habit. He remembered stories from his days in the army, his being a much different sort of sergeant there. He’d never heard anyone speak more fondly of the art of yelling. That tactic suited him just fine, because all he knew was that he wanted to drive Celn  _hard_  today. Make him regret thinking he could call the shots.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, I know who you are, scabber,” Hawker growled. “Now run.” When Celn took a second too long to respond, the mech bared down. “Did I stutter? Laps around the bay!” he barked, pointing with a fierce stomp of his giant foot. “ **Go!** ”

As soon as he’d taken off, the mech made his way to the middle so he could follow the little human in his 1000-yard track around the place. He paged one of the mess droids: <I need protein delivered to Celn in 2 hours, and another in 4.> The hospitality AI bleeped back a simple confirmation, not bothering with an English interface for speaking with another one of 42’s machine-minds. Protein delivered immediately post-workout was the most effective way to build muscle, his research told him. There were other fascinating little morsels of information he’d learned too, but most of the exercise manual was dedicated  _losing_  weight, not  _gaining_  it. He’d had to supplement its material with some reading of his own before he was satisfied.

“C’mon, scab,” he shouted, pretending that the kid was beginning to slack. “Run like your miserable little life depends on it!”

 

* * *

 

The human wasn’t sure what to feel with Hawker anymore. What to feel about the whole situation! People gave the AI a wide berth around 42. They kept out of it’s way and seemed to be content to let it do it’s own thing. Maybe that’s why this was so difficult. No one had considered that Lee might die. And they didn’t have a program to find new recruits. That made sense. He is trailblazing.

Hawker had given him some strange looks with that strong, handsome face of his. Those expressive yellow eyes finally narrowing before it barked at him like a drill sergeant. Chris suddenly felt scared for a whole other reason. ‘Oh god, they’re literally going to have it work me over today.’ A big, lumbering, tireless machine. Making it’s pilot exercise.

There were more then the normal amount of other AIs in the motor pool, it’s Saturday. They’re jealously grousing now. A machine that is allowed to make it’s pilot exercise? Encouraged to do so? And the pilot had to obey?

They watched with a kind of oozing satisfaction, savoring every second that the mech did it’s duty.

Chris had his arms lifted up, hands into fists, moving back and forth as he jogged around the bay at a reasonable rate. He is so small! And with his little legs it took him forever to make it any distance at all. He heard the big mech taking slow, easy steps toward the large open bay. When he rounded a corner he could see it now. Int he middle, staring directly at him. Tracking him.

_“Run like your miserable little life depends on it!”_

Chris barked out a response “Sir yes sir!”

Oh no. The machine is going to be physically training him! Chris picked up his pace, now running as he felt his blood circulating. He took deep and fast breaths, in through the nose and out the the mouth. The ground thumped under his shoes and he watched ahead of himself so he didn’t run into something. His comfortable athletic shoes bounced up under each step. Now he’s approaching Hawker. It stood like a twoer, eyes like spotlights on him.

Did it hate him? Had he done more damage then good? Why had it ejected him? The scabber felt the questions weighing him down. No interfacing for days. And.. last time, talking didn’t go so well. He is just going to have to tough it out. That made him groan, and he put his mind to running. He’d go until Hawker said stop or he fell over.

 

* * *

 

The mech watched with a sadistic satisfaction as the little meatboy jogged around the compound.

Going; back to him; then turning; coming. Panting. Brows pressed together in the physical effort of moving the slight bulk of his body one footstrike at a time. He recalled again their time together the day before, and he scowled deeper. “ _C’mon!_ ” he barked, lunging at the scab with a thunderous step, poised like he was ready to move in for the kill. It was all a show; or was it? Deep down, in his hindprocessors, Hawker knew that he was working out his anger. “ **MOVE!** ”

The kid dutifully broke into a sprint, sweat glistening on his brow. Hawker bit back his smirk.

Celn was just about done with his first lap; the mech had planned on making him run a full two miles, all told. And no word of praise was coming to mind.

Another minute, and Celn was slowing by a fraction of a mile per hour. “Don’t make me chase your goddamn ass,” he growled, legitimately tempted to do so just to see the look of fear on his face.

Hawker vented in a sudden burst. Kole owed him a new paint job after this.

In the moments between yelling at Celn, the mech checked in on the news. It was a habit of his; he liked keeping a finger on Chicago’s pulse.

_Informants close to the case have told the Tribune that the Lead Dawn syndicate has plans to move further west into the city as La Familia loses ground thanks to the efforts of precinct 38. Officials recommend that residents obey curfew laws, and keep vigilant against neighborhood incursions from…_

Hawker rumbled. Goddamn journos, informing public enemies as well as the rank-and-file citizenry of the situation. Still, there’d been rumors… Lead Dawn was gaining territory, smuggling illegal mech tech, drugs, and conventional weapons. They were the rust belt’s biggest supplier of guns, and Hawker wanted nothing more than to dismantle their entire operation with his bare hands.

Meanwhile, Celn had sensed that his Sergeant Hartman was distracted and had let up in the  _slightest_. His mistake.

“Pedal to the metal, scab!” Hawker shouted, falling in step behind him. Eight of the little human’s hurried footfalls to each of his thunderous ones. “If you slacked like this on the street, you’d be a fucking  _smear on the wall_  by now!”

 

* * *

 

<This is it, he’d going to kill me!> thought Chris. THe machine is growling at him, barking like a drill sergeant.

Chris is not a stranger to running. But on the street it had been about short bursts, sprinting after a score. This felt like the start of an endurance run, the pace Hawker had him moving at. He felt sweat soaking into his shirt, the wet spot in the center of his back and spreading.

***BOOM!***

_“Pedal to the metal, scab!”_  In a datafile on Hawker’s legs and feet; there are numerous entries about the effects of footfalls on normal humans. It spoke at length why the default step cycle is quiet, well sprung and shock-absorbed. Not just for the durability of the environment, but to keep the mech from being ‘unduly noticeable.’ Chris could feel his teeth clatter with every step behind him. Hawker purposely is thumping behind him, letting the rookie know what his fate will be if he lets up.

Roadkill.

Chris allowed himself a single glance over his shoulder as he made a turn. Hawker’s hydraulic systems pumped the multitude of pistons, raising one leg as he other pushed back. The smirk on the face above him..

The large robot is enjoying this! Did it get yorker kicked off the job? Or had it just insisted that it is superior for it’s pilot’s personal fitness? If it was the former, Celn could almost forgive Hawker for the hell he knew he’d be going through. A growl echoed behind him, and he pushed himself back up to the pace being set. God help him if the machine caught up!

—————

The Chicago Tribune’s website coughed up two new articles. “In overseas news, Taiwan and South Korea report a rash of advanced and illegal parts for AI co-citizens. With the above-regulation metals and improved artificial muscles; these joints would turn human-analogue androids into dangerous robots. Weiland-Yutani insists that the implants are not to be used, despite no compatibility errors. ‘We value our citizen-employees. These modifications contain hard coded instruction sets. They could be used for unknown overrides.’ W-Y Corp is still barred from doing business in the Americas after the analogue uprising of 2041. See the following links our coverage on the uprising.”

“In other news, local police report the latest pilot programs are reporting low turnout results. Speaking for the ailing program is Medical Officer Dara. ‘Human minds have unique layouts, even with our similar biology. How a single person will respond to an implant is an unknown. Even siblings have vastly different results. We encourage all interface capable citizens, who are facing unemployment, to see their nearest recruiting station.’ Dr Dara also provided a graphic for your information.”

D Class – Able to interface and operate static machinery. Surveillance systems, for example.  
C Class – Small or slow machinery. Forklifts, construction equipment. Nothing over speeds of 30 mph.  
B Class – Any wheeled or tracked craft and ships.  
A Class – Walking machinery, Avionics, with AI.  
Specialized- Advanced operations, Military operations, Advance AI, Multiple AI, Medical, etc. Specialized operators are tested, then classified to their individual abilities. Less then 1 in 10,000 humans are able to achieve this level of communication.

————————

Chris wheezed as the 4th lap came up. He’s going to die..

 

* * *

 

Hawker’s feet didn’t have toes like the previous models of the HLX line did – they were simply more possible points of failure to shoot at; they looked more like thick combat boots with hydraulic plates on the soles that accomplished the same stabilizing effect as human toes. Their rubberized coating cushioned the blow of his 3-ton footfalls, but he stomped on the ground anyway, quite enjoying the sound they made and the way Celn reacted.

He caught up easily, and deciding he wanted to harass the human a little more, he bent forward and gave the kid a shove in the back with his finger.

“Not so tough outside of neurospace, huh?” he goaded. “Not so  _big_.” Celn didn’t give him the reaction that he was looking for. “Hey, I’m talking to you, scab!” He grabbed him by the shoulder, yanking him to a halt and pushed him into the floor. Hawker got on all fours behind him and brought his face in close. He felt big, dangerous, compared to the tired little body before him, so obedient. Fluids surged, thorium burned hot. Something about this  _satisfied_. “How’s it feel, huh?” he growled. “You’re paying penance, Celn. I hope you know that. Now  _give me 30 and I don’t give a shit how long it takes._ ”

He stood up again and paced behind the absolutely tiny creature, staring daggers. High on his own station.

 

* * *

 

Behind him, the heavy stomping grew. Chris asked his legs to do a sprint, but they were locked in the pace he was in. He could go slower, that was his only option. The big digit touched his back, and he felt like a toy car that’d been prodded. He actually is boosted forward, the shove throws off his cadence and he stumbles, his l=right ankle moving funny. No a sprain, but he kind slip that would have been bad if his left didn’t come down right away.

He’d gotten two steps back in the run when the world shuddered to a halt. He had just enough time to appreciate the cold metal on his hot skin before got pressed DOWN. The weight Hawker employed could have buckled steel. Chris’s body yield, his legs folding as he rolled onto his back.

He panted, listening to the sounds of the mech as Hawker’s face came close. The Giant got looms over him, inches away. Hawker spoke an growled at him, surging like a living thing.

Chris barely registered the words, his face red and pink. He felt fear, he felt tired. But he also felt an intense and sudden lust that rung in his ears as that handsome gigantic face snarled at him.

It is a very, very good thing Hawker couldn’t sense his emotional turmoil right at that moment.

Fear came back to the forefront as it rose up, up and up. On the ground, Chris got to appreciate how much bigger 15 feet tall is. It glowered at him, like he was an insect to crush another the treads of those titanium boots.

 _“You’re paying penance, Celn.”_  oh. Hawker is pissed for sure.

Chris rolled onto his hands and knees, his back arching down as he spread his legs. That pert rear showing prominently under the sweatpants. Legs straightening, he east down until his chest rested on the dirty concrete floor. Smelled like motor oil.

“Yes, sir.” he growled with exhaustion. Then he began doing push ups. Already his arms are shaking, the run wouldn’t be helping. His for is off. <One.> he mentally counted. <Two..> And He’s already cheating, not going all the way down. He needs education.

 

* * *

 

_“Yes, sir._

The mech’s eyes flashed dangerously. It was no doubt who was in charge, who was the superior, but… something was missing from the picture. Hawker wasn’t satisfied. What did he want? Fuck’s sake! His six motors roared, RPMs surging and he clenched his hands. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to shove his face into the dirt until his eyes watered and he choked for breath.

He settled for concrete.

Huge metal fingers pressed into his sweaty back, feeling his scapulae, his spine, his ribs through the fabric. Hawker pushed him down against the floor, held him there with dental plates clenched behind drawn lips. Celn had the wind knocked out of him, struggled against those iron fingers.

“Where’s your fight, Celn?” the mech found himself hissing into the kid’s ear: a mouth big enough to take half his face between his denta. He didn’t know where this was coming from. He didn’t ask. “C’mon,” he barked, still holding him down, “Where’s the brave little soldier I saw yesterday, huh? Where’s that hero in the face of six tons of titanium rage? C’mon, Celn! Fight back, you son of a bitch!  _Fight back!_ ”

 

* * *

 

Chris had made it to ten shaking, aching push=ups. He wasn’t doing badly either. But he couldn’t make it to thirty after that run.

Above him Hawker  **THUNDERED** , the mechanized force filled it’s pressurized lines with potent potential energy. He could hear the sudden change in position as Hawker moved. He felt the air pressure coming from impact before it hit.

The push up become a push down. Then the down continued, and he felt the two incompressible surfaces just inches apart. He quickly went from discomfort to pain. Not just from the way his joints and skin rubbed into the rough surface, but from the extra half an inch hawker squeezed out of his lungs as he tried to get more then a mouthful of air in.

_“Fight back!”_

The moment slowed. Chris’s adrelinine dumped into his mind, he felt terror with each continued second of squeezing. And that Face! Just inches from his own! What could he do? Punch a robot? Kick at it? He is physically outclassed and it moced him, MOCKED HIM! for how he’d tried to help.

Chris’s panicked expression turned ugly. Some part of him knew that Hawker couldn’t kill him. And being passive wasn’t enough anymore. He had to do something.

The hand closest to that angry face reached up, shooting through the snarling words, those perfect and dangerous teeth and grabbed the very large tongue! Those fingers dug in, uncaring if they hurt the soft material of the robot’s pallet material.

“You’re.. weak…” came the wheezing, furious, and compressed rookie’s rebuttal.

 

* * *

 

Fingers. Around his  _tongue_.

_“You’re.. weak…”_

Weak. Him, weak.

Hawker’s world slowed down. Milliseconds clicked, optics clicked. Moved. Apertures opening, closing, focusing on arm, shoulder, back, face. Celn’s face was smooth. Exhausted, but still so alive with the vitality of youth. He had a special energy that got him through scab school. An energy that made Hawker choose him out of the others. Choose him.

_I could bite that goddamn hand off._

The mech did this thing with his tongue, not taking his optics off the little body below him, practically beaten black and blue. He slowly pressed it up into his palate and drew it backwards, releasing himself from Celn’s hand but not without sliding the appendage across his palm and down his fingers. He imagined that they had a taste. Like salt, maybe, from sweat. Like dust. Like a faint sweetness he mightn't even known existed. Hawker suddenly fought the urge to draw the kid’s whole arm into his mouth, turning the fragile flesh over with his tongue.

Again, he settled. Grazed his denta as he drew his mouth away, releasing both Celn’s hand and his own. The kid coughed as he filled his lungs.

Weak.

_Lee would be ashamed to see what it’s done to you._

Hawker burned hot again, though it was different this time. He vented. The air between them hummed with energy, he could feel it. Or maybe he couldn’t and it was all just in his AI’s cold, logical, imagination.

Weak.

That’s what he’d been waiting for this whole time, wasn’t it? He was waiting for Celn to state the obvious and assert his quality.

“You should have told me what you were going to do before you did it,” he murmured after a long few moments. “Unilateral decisions like that are not for you to make. We’re supposed to be a team, Chris. That’s the only way this is going to work.”

_Hypocrite bastard._

 

* * *

 

His memory of the expression on Hawker’s face is going to amuse Chris for a long time. The tongue is so strong! And it functioned like a human’s tongue, moving and slipping around his hand. There is a slickness inside of the machine’s mouth. Some kind of oil or coolant? His soft skin compressed between the upper and lower rows of teeth. As his arm came free, the gaps between the denta left temporarily ridges on his skill. He hand came back, clean and wet. He Grasped the lower lip, curiously. It pulled gently on his fingers, moving away from the mech’s gums before the slippery oral fluid ensured that the lip popped out of his grasp as well.

The pressure on him. THe sensation of the mouth. He, so very badly, wanted to enjoy the moment. But that want is lost in his anger, his pain, and his fury at the broken AI.

He curled up, looking so tiny and vulnerable as he lay on the concrete floor. Stars and colors filled his vision. Memories came back. He’d hoped he’d never be beaten into the ground gain. Compressed into concrete was close enough to count. At least he didn’t have broken bones this time.

Eventually, he righted, coming to a squat. In those sweats and the tight shirt, he looked like a slav. Old habits. His shaking fingers brushed pebbles and bits of metal from his face. And from his arms and neck. His clothes were filthy, like he’d.. like he’d been crawling on the floor of a motor pool.

He closed his eyes and kept breathing, rolling his head on his neck, working out one of the many kinks he’d be developing.

After the machine spoke, his mouth opened and the corners turned up. He laughed! A cruel, mocking laugh.

“I told you just what I’d do.” He wheezed, wishing the blood would flow back into his legs. He fell back onto his ass, stretching them forward as he worked the knees to get the lead out. He ran his hands through his short hair, feeling debris bounce down over his ears and onto his shirt.

“You held me so gently, before we began. We went thought it Hawker.” The rookie coughed. “A dozen times, tried everything. Even grenades.” Hawker’s logical AI core predicted the CLX-6 actions perfectly in that ‘simulation.’ It’d shot the human-lobbed grenades out of the air.

“The mass of an engine block though, not easily deflected. We forged a new path.”

He pushed himself upward. THe heat venting from the mech felt good. Like a sauna. Dry, mechanical heat. “You were trapped in that moment. Those memories. You’d lost half your mind. I had to lead you out of it. Gave you a way forward.”

He pulled off his shirt. His voice muffled slightly from the fabric. The material moved humorously over his face as he spoke. “I felt it. Everything.” His chest is marked with the imprint of the ground. The bruised from before looked green and blue.

“You lost half your mind that day. You kept looping back.” His hard look softened in understanding. He lifted up his palm towards the far-off face. “You were trapped.” He purposefully turned, showing his back to the machine. Ugly, ugly damage around the implant that flowed away, riding his nerves in unpleasant patterns. From ejection.

“And for my trouble? This.” he jerked his thumb at the damage, before pulling the shirt back on after shaking it out. He had an oil stain over his heart. “And an AI, who attacked me from the beginning. And hasn’t stopped.”

“Who loves to grind me against new, impossible tasks without warning.” he spoke. Face tisting with that same ugly, accusing expression. A face like his should smile.

“And has never behaved according to the rule of teamwork it just asked ME to follow.” He growled. Pointing! Pointing up like a kid facing down a bully three times his size.

Which he is.

Worse, Chris is still obedient. He hadn’t  _stopped_  fighting back!

 

 

* * *

 

He watched as Chris got up from the floor, slowly, almost one burning limb at a time. He watched as he tried brushing off the fine black particulates from the floor, smearing carbon on his cheek. A song came to mind.  _Buddy you’re a young man hard man shouting in the street gonna take on the world someday…_

Hawker remained on all fours for some reason as he listened, face hard. He watched as Chris spoke. The kid was keeping his cool, impressively enough. He slipped off his shirt, and the machine watched as his lean muscle flexed, chest and belly expanded and flattened with his breaths. Such a fragile, compact system, its complexity far surpassing his own. Then, he turned, and Hawker was forced to look at the damage from the past few days in all its ugly glory. It was like he’d wrapped his big thumb and forefinger around that slight neck and  _squeezed_.

 _“You were trapped. And for my trouble? **This.** “_ Hawker looked away, shuttering his optics.

He turned back just in time to have a finger shoved in his giant face.

_“And has never behaved according to the rule of teamwork it just asked **me**  to follow!”_

Hawker vented again, remaining silent. He felt eyes on him. He whipped around, falling back into a kneel, and bored his yellow optics into the crew who had ceased working on the squad cars. “ **What are you looking at?** ” he barked. The techs just about jumped out of their skins and made quickly made themselves scarce. The two of them were officially alone, he realized as he turned back to the kid. His shirt was on again. Vague disappointment. Like putting a mask back on.

“It’s my job to push you,” he said. He spoke, voice laden with hardened shame. “Push you until you’re strong enough to push back.” Another vent, he fisted his right hand. “But… it looks like I pushed too hard.” He raked over Chris’s tired form. “But yesterday was different. You told me what your plan was, I acquiesced. I take responsibility for that. But what you don’t seem to understand is that that loop  _wasn’t_  me. You ran that show. Something about wetware merging with wetware,” he said quietly, frowning at the floor. “Even long-dead wetware has a quality about it that not even Deep Field can control.”

Hawker hoped the kid would accept his apology, but also understand that he unwittingly played a role. He was human, and fragile, but he had power too. Every pilot needed to know that.

_Buddy you’re an old man poor man pleading with your eyes gonna make you some peace someday…_

_You got mud on your face. Big disgrace. Somebody better put you back into your place._

 

* * *

 

The techs are watching. Whatever work they had was put on hold to take in the action. Any of the other AIs were watching too. When Big Nine threw Celn down, and appeared to be crushing him while shouting.. there’d been rapid whispers. Worry. Would.. could.. it kill the greenhorn? Why was it acting like that? What’d the kid do??

Then it backed off. THe rookie had talked, his voiced drowned out under the mech’s engines whirling. Its like watching David and Goliath! They hurriedly backed off, disappointed. What a show!

Chris walked up to the kneeling form of Hawker. A form that still loomed over him. He stood between those thighs, reaching up to put his hand on the big robot’s stomach. Somewhere around the navel. He looked up. He smiled. A little one. Made his cheeks dimple a bit.

“Okay. I forgive you.” The splayed hand slid left and right, rubbing at the panel of armor that looked like abdominal muscles. “I do need you to push me. I’m not strong enough. Not fast enough. You can help. You can mold me to fit. Teach me to be the perfect pilot.”

He tilted his head, stepping back, leaning casually against the right thigh as he kept looking upward. He wiped his nose with his thumb. “I’m never going to be Lee. I will never fit in the void he left behind.”

He sighed. “I’ll be new. Different. I’m the next pilot. You had some before Lee. You must have. Even if it was some guy in the factory where you were built. Maybe not as good, maybe not as capable. But you had them. The army tried to.. hmmpf.” He tried to sum up his point. “They tried to say, any qualified person can pilot. Like pilots are ammunition or a AA battery.”

He shook his head left and right. “But in the civilian world it’s different. Pilots are a chain. One after the other, not replacement parts. I can do this. I know I can. I will work up to every strenuous task, every impossible bar you set.”

He slid a hand upward, casually caressing over the inner thigh, then curiously touching the massive hip joint before crossing his arms.

“I want you Hawker. I want to be your pilot. We can be great. We can rock the world. Just, help me get there. Push me, grind me down if you have to.”

He looked down at chest dirty closes, the road rash on his skin. In places it bled in slow, welling patches. He looked back up. “Just.. could ya maybe not beat me?”

 

* * *

 

The other AIs were below him, and rightfully so. They were sophisticated, sure; brilliant, even. But Hawker knew that they weren’t exactly sentient in the way he was. The humans thought differently – but the humans tended to get more sentimental about their machines. Even the coffee maker in the office had a name.

Chris… stepped in between the little space between his massive thighs. He peered down the complex, roughly-angled expanse of his own chest as a little hand came to rest along one of his abdominal plates. The kid, his bright brown hair, warm skin, and heather gray clothes was quite the contrast to Hawker’s dangerous matte black. He liked that contrast. He liked…

_“Okay. I forgive you.”_

And just like that, their slate was wiped clean. No more questions, no more demands, just a warm little hand sliding along his belly and an even warmer little body standing so suggestively close to his own. A long vent, a rough idle. Hawker was going to pretend that the kid was unaware of how inappropriate this would be if the mech were a fifteen-foot human. Earlier that week, Chris had downloaded his official schematics. Only Colburn, Kole, and Hawker himself were aware of his… aftermarket parts, and where details were concerned, nobody was talking. The mech’s life was just easier if he ignored all of it.

It was endearing how Chris searched for words, the way his mouth twisted up the littlest bit, the way he blinked or touched his face. But Hawker understood what he was trying to say. Pilots had successors, had predecessors. Their machines were inherited friends… inherited family. Beloved things passed down from generation to generation.

But he touched the mech’s thigh, and Hawker went impossibly still. The haptic sensors embedded in his armored hide went wild as the tiny fingers danced up a seam. Up, up.

_Chris, dammit…_

Just a young man fiddling with something on his car, was the mantra. Just a young man, fiddling with something on his favorite car. Just a young man, lean, dimpled, warm…

As that little slice of heat slid further up toward the counterweight between his legs, Hawker was beginning to wonder if he  _didn’t_  know exactly what he was doing.

_“I want you, Hawker.”_

_“Grind me down…”_

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

The mech suddenly wanted to.

But just like that, Chris folded his arms and the moment ended. Hawker wanted those hands on him again. And he’d get them soon enough – but it wouldn’t be like that. It would be scrubbing grease from boot treads, or shoving a socket wrench into his side. It would be hands on yokes and a pert ass on his seat and a metal probe in the kid’s spine. They were pilot and machine. Partners. And maybe someday, if he were lucky, friends. At least they’d wiped the slate clean. They could have a fresh start. A better chance of not killing each other now.

Chris Celn was not Lee, and maybe that’s what scared him, angered him from the start. That someone  _dared_  try and occupy his seat at the table at all. If it hadn’t been Chris, it’d have just been the next one, right? Hawker had to make a decision: bury the dead or get junked. Bury the dead or  _join_  them.

The answer was obvious.

_“Just… could ya maybe not beat me?”_

He chuckled a little, trying to forget what had just happened. “Yeah, I can do that,” he relented, remembering his sense of humor. “If you promise to be a good little pilot. Now I, uh… I believe you still owe me 20 pushups. Better get on that.”


	5. Train to Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where the pair move on, but Hawker isn't sure he wants where they're moving on TO.

Chris noticed when Hawker had gone still. The mech  _never_  stood still. Even when in the gantry, it whirred and wiggled it’s fingers and looked about. He swore the coolant pumps had even halted.

<Touched a nerve? Or did you like that?> he wondered. If Hawker enjoyed it when he is so close, doing those intimate strokes of his hands.. then perhaps they’d be friends. Very, very good friends. He hand to focus on a bit of the floor and take deep calming breaths. He is right in between the mach’s thighs! It’s like Hawker is kneeling over him in bed, sitting on his face and….

No. NO! Be Professional. He’d hadn’t rubbed one out sense he’d gotten to 42. It’s been days now and he is getting imaginative. Perhaps even a touch perverted. And he’d had his hand and arm in Hawker’s mouth and the way it’d felt and….

<STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!> he mentally scolded himself. <You just patched things up and are starting over. Now you’re gonna FLIRT with him?> he exhaled sharply out his nose. <And just what happens if he decides he does fancy you sunshine? How the fuck will that work when we’re linked up? When I’m done today, I’m getting this out of my system.> Chris decided; thinking to himself. Hawker probably is holding still so he didn’t squash Chris’s hand in the complex hip joint. That’s all. Still, if it was something else, a little teasing wouldn’t hurt. Right? Right….

“Yes Sir. 20 more push ups.” Right in front of him is the heavily weighted codpiece. It hung low and impressive, protecting the center of those complicated mechanicals. Chris looked up, innocently putting both hands on it. “Then I think you’d figure out how we’re going to deal with the fact that there’s no weight room here.” He pressed on that armor, hands sliding to the sides as he pushed off and got down right there. His face and arms by the knees. His feet barely visible, almost under Hawker’s nose! He grunted, arms and body core working. He knew that he was doing, deliberately prodding at sensual feelings the mech likely didn’t have. But maybe, he’d get Hawker curious. And keeping the mech interested and amused would make it want him around more then if he bored the AI.

“Eleven!” He had to breath hard, building up strength isn’t easy. On his right arm, blood trickled down from one of the abrasions he’d gotten from being compressed. “Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen..” He counted each one aloud, doing his best. He had to take three breaks. THe last five push-ups were agony, and when he finished he rolled onto his side and leaned against the massive mechanical left knee.

“Oh man..” he gasped “..you’re lucky..” he swallowed “..you’re always strong..”

 

* * *

  

Deep Field 2 was more than capable of experiencing the sensation called ‘pleasure’. The designers never coded in any such pathways, though, for a few reasons: one, DF2 was to be compatible with any number of body configurations; two, the work required would have been immense, and frankly, psychology and neuroscience still didn’t know enough to inform such design yet; and three, such feelings were, frankly, an unnecessary liability for the AIs in question.

But the pleasure sense arose anyways in DF2-equipped machines – it coded itself.

It was one of the many elephants in the room for AI engineers, though Hawker was a lucky HLX-9 in that it never posed a problem for him. At least… not that he could remember. Who knew what was so neatly hidden away in those  _TOP SECRET_  documents? Who in the world had been responsible for installing not one, but  _two_  –

_Hands._

Hands on his  _junk_. What the hell was that kid  _doing?!_

Hawker ground his denta together, holding his ‘breath’. The mech was the superior here, he needed to keep his goddamn cool. He flinched the tiniest bit when those hands released him, but as the kid turned to do his reps right there between his legs, he had to look elsewhere.

What was this, then? Was he trying to win brownie points by being a hot little piece of ass? The humans played these games all the time: flirting for favors and worse for promotions. But Hawker was a mech – big, powerful, and proud. If the kid had a little frustration to work out of his system, then that was on him. Hawker was a professional.

_“Oh man, you’re lucky… you’re always strong…”_

Well, most of the time he was.

He was on all fours again, this time directly above Chris. Then he removed his left arm from the floor and folded it across his lower back. One leg back, then the other. The mech lowered himself down, slowly, surely, into a single-armed pushup. Servos whirred, hydraulics sighed, and everything else in his arm hummed.

“I’ll trust you to do your own workouts when you can do one of these,” he said calmly, then rose back up, all the way up, until he was standing again, the little human still splayed out on his back between Hawker’s massive feet. The look on Chris’s face brought out the smugness in him. “I’ll get a crash pad in here,” he decided. “As for equipment…” A pause, as though he hadn’t already come up with a solution. “They say to make do with what you have.” Hawker wiggled his fingers in the kid’s direction, then fisted them all but one to point with. “Your protein gets here in ten, and I want you running until it does. Now hit the pavement!”

Chris dutifully leapt up and bounded away. The sight, the eager obedience… pleased him.

 

* * *

 

Chris knew exactly what he’d been doing. He’d acted perfectly innocent, that is part of it. The other part is pretending to ignore the reaction of his partner. Hawker thought of himself as Male. That’s Male with a capital M. The mech hadn’t shouted him down, or backhanded him across the motor pool. So that means.. that means Hawker tolerated his little display. Or, perhaps even liked it.

Then it happened. Hawker on top of him. He lay on the ground, not far from the chest cavity where he’d spent hours training. There is no fear that the mech planned to hurt him. There is however, other emotions. Emotions that’d pretty plain on his face when those yellow eyes ever able to take in his expression. He looked pleased and impressed. He liked the inherent strength of the massive mech. And there is no denying it. He is smiling.

“Yes sir. I’ll work on that.” his head followed the big hand, watching the fingers and wrist move.

He kept that smile as he got back to running, quickly working up to the same pace. It felt like 15 tons had come off his back. They’d patched things up. Now if he could keep his cool and get back to training; he might have a future with Hawker.

Aft minutes passed, another thought occurred to him. Until now, Hawker had called him rookie. Scabber. Still did. But, for the first time he could remember; he’d been called a  _pilot_  by colossal machine.

He had a spring in his step the rest of the run.

————

A robot from the vending and food service rolled into the motor pool. It maneuvered over tot he well-used vending machines and did the daily restock, filling them with snacks and nutrient packets; while disposing of the expired ones. After completing, it slowly made it’s way down to the big dog’s alcove. It place two bottles of protein supplements on the delivery pad. One looked cool, the other looked frozen. Like’d thaw after about 3-4 hours. Then it turned and trundled out to continue on it’s rounds.

It’s IFF tag transmitted continuously, sending out it’s location and relative dimensions as crossed in front of the vehicle bays. Chris’s route would have him jogging right past it’s purpose-built form. As he passed, eyes forward as he breathed heavily, it dutifully scanned him before reporting to medical. <Superficial damage. Stop worrying.> it transmitted. <Our bet’s fine.>

Celn halted at the bottles, recognising them easily. He grabbed for the one not coated in a sheen of ice, shaking it up before peeling the top back and guzzling it down. Sweat dripped off his brow, down over the dirt on his face. It made little streaks of cleanliness.

 

* * *

 

Hawker kept himself on the level by forcing himself to shift focus away from his pilot to the news. It was a habit; one that Kole might have called an addiction if the mech had dopamine receptors.

Chris had located his protein and was sucking it down like water. The mech suddenly pictured him sucking down something else entirely.

 _Christ, if Kole doesn’t give us a patrol soon this is going to drive me insane._  Somehow, neurospace seemed to be safer. He didn’t have to  _see_  Chris when he was in the cockpit, only feel him, and even then, their collective minds were usually focused on the task at hand. Hawker had never used… his cockpit upgrades on Lee. They weren’t like that.The man was almost a mentor, and the pilot’s seat was a special place for the both of them in an entirely different way. Besides... Lee never knew anyways. At least, never knew much. And part of the bargain he struck with Kole and Colburn was to never ask.

Hawker decided to chalk up Chris’s sudden change in behavior to sheer relief and excitement at being able to move forward as a team; at the massive HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker unit finally being  _his_. He seemed to wear his emotions on his sleeves, after all.

“Alright,” he called. “Stretch for ten, break for ten. You’re doing… good. We’ll get those pounds on you soon enough.”

In the meantime, he would see about those pads. Hm… and where the hell to  _put_  them.

 

* * *

 

Chris geld the bottle around the middle. His fingers curled around it’s circumference, right around the middle. The bottle is white, a kind of generic extruded plastic. The bulbous tip pressed against his lips as he thirstily drank down the contents. He had his head tilted back, his throat flexing and his adam’s apple bobbing. Some of the white, thick fluid dripped down his chin. Only after he finished did he go level and wipe off his chin with the back of a hand.

The bottle he left next to the other, the he wiggled to loosen up. He started with simple stuff, raising his arms and stanind on his toes. THen he crouched down with arms forward. Then he rolled back and sat, legs together as he reached forward to stretch his back and touch his toes.

Almost bent in half, his shirt pulling up to expose his lower back. H had a pronounced spine, a narrow waist.Five to ten pounds of muscle and he’d have defination. Now he had that wry strength. What he look like built? With thick muscle in the skin-tight pilot suit?

Chris stood up, breathing for a moment. Then he put his left leg up on a crate, leaving forward to stretch out again. HIs perky rear filled out the back of those sweats, the material curving around his behind.

“I .. hrrg! Ow. They mentioned I needed to get better at climbing and swimming along with the weights.” he spoke, his face almost to his knee. “Does that mean I’m going to climb you? Or they gonna have me scaling a wall?”

 

* * *

 

 _No,_  Hawker decided.  _He knows exactly what he’s doing._

The question was, what was he going to do about it?

“Heard you scared away a few of our mechanics,” Colburn butt in. “How’s it going down there?”

<Kissed and made up I guess,> he harumphed. He must’ve sounded a little distracted, though, because –

“You sound a little distracted,” she said, biting back a laugh. “If he’s giving you a hard time, you know how to put him in his place, Nine.”

Hawker frowned, cocking a brow, and folded his arms as his optics zoomed in on Chris’s rear. <That’s the problem,> he mumbled.

“What is?”

<Nothing.> A pause, then: <You’re watching the CCTV right now aren’t you?> His face turned toward the nearest security camera, and he shot it a look.

“What! I only  _just_  tuned in, alright? I’m checking in because it looks like you two are actually getting along, which raised my suspicions.”

Hawker turned back to the kid for a second, stiffly giving out an order: “Don’t forget your shoulders, Celn! Keep that neck nice and loose!” Then he returned to Colburn. <I want you to do a physical on him today. Make sure everything’s… normal.>

The mech was wanting to rule out any other reason for Chris’s behavior before… well, before he would have to do something about it. Either shut it down, or…

Hawker cursed to himself.

“Normal?”

<Yeah, normal. He seems uncharacteristically energetic. I just want to make sure he’s not experiencing some kind of endorphin rebound from whatever painkillers you gave him this morning.>

“Endorphin rebound? Did you just make that up?”

<Just do it, please.>

—

Hawker made the kid do another lap while he waited for the maintenance droids to deliver the crash pad. Fifteen minutes later, and there was a dull red slab of industrial-grade foam laying on the floor. The mech picked it up and moved it off to the side, closer to his slab and away from potential traffic of vehicles coming and going. Thankfully, this motor pool wasn’t used quite as often as the garage reserved for the beat cops and their cruisers. Down here was emergency response and raid units. But, being Chicago, the place saw action at least several times a month.

“You’re scheduled for a once-over in medical at 0300,” Hawker said as the rookie headed over to the 8″ thick pad. “To make sure your implant isn’t being aggravated or something.”

The human was affecting him. Distracting him. It was almost as if… as soon as he had stopped conflating Chris with Lee, everything clicked into place. Their relationship suddenly had room to be whatever it needed to be. Chris was  _Chris_ , and with him a whole new world of possibilities opened up. Namely that Hawker felt more in charge now. Before,  _he’d_  been the subordinate. Now the roles were reversed. It was interesting.

 

* * *

 

The run around the bay helped him clear his head. Let him think. What was he trying to do with Hawker, exactly? The big bot is in control, so why flirt, what helpt pushing him to salaciously parade around in front of the mech? He turned the first corner. He did admit that the looks he’d been getting were amusing. It is fun to have that kind of attention. His shoes thumped on the concrete. He passed the spot where he’d made an impression. Turned the second corner. For once the machine wasn’t being aggressive or indifferent, if kept glancing to him. He swore he’d felt those optical sensors glued to his rear when he’d leaned down to touch his toes. That’d been right before the order to run. Third corner.

It’d been when Hawker had ‘eaten’ him. That’s part of it. THe oversized, yet still human touch. Then there was the machine being so close, the way it’d knel, pushed him down, those push ups. Maybe flirting is a sign of trust. Fourth corner. Hawker is messing with a huge and thick red mat. Looked comfortable. Or just maybe, he’d picked up something when he’d been in Hawker. Maybe it is mutual attract that he felt.

Whatever it was, he needed to keep it cool. Let things develop slowly.

————————

Chris took the final steps as a slow job, arms bouncing in place. He panted, nodding as he heard about his appointment. “Yes sir. Medical inspection.” So easy to obey that strong, booming voice. His arm tilted up and back, his fingers feeling over the bandaged implant. He winced and grumbled as he poked around at the damage. “Doesn’t feel any worse then this morning, Sir.”

THe sweat soaked into his shirt, making it cling to his skin. THe debri and dirt made it feel awful, and he pulled it off, dropping it off on the side. He had some fantastic bruises now, and on his back the shape of a big hand in red stood out. The human walked up to the edge of the matt and knelt. He experimentally poked and pushed into the thick padding. He stood back up, giving Hawker a grin.

Damn, did he like the sight of that towering giant over him. “Orders Sir?”

 

* * *

 

The mech saw the marks on Chris's back, and felt a strange combination of interest and disgust. He made that mark. And so easily, too. Long ago he'd been re-taught just how much force the human body could comfortably handle, and how, with friendlies, he should swear never to exceed that. With enemies, though, it was a different story. Sometimes, though, it was easy to forget his own power. Or at least, forget when it was appropriate to  _use_  it.   
  
_I'll be feeling that skin again soon enough, guaranteed,_  he thought to himself, not especially pleased with being excited about it.  
  
Hawker was going to have him do bodyweight exercises, but he didn't like the way that neck looked still. He didn't want him straining the sensitive flesh there with crunches or any other such nonsense. Which meant he was going to have to get up close and personal. Yeah, what was that about feeling skin?  
  
"You ever use machines? Of course you did, back with that Yorker clown." He knelt down in front of Chris, and pointed at the mat. "On your back," Hawker said, trying his best to sound casual at the idea of the cute little human laying prone underneath him. "Feet in the air - together. I'll provide resistance. You're going to do 20 reps of leg presses at about 40 pounds, breaking between sets for a minute, then continue. 40 pounds may not feel like much, but you're going to train to failure today, greenhorn."  _And I'll be happy to put you there._    
  
Chris was glistening with sweat, his lean muscle catching the light and his little nipples catching the cool air. Hawker wasn't sure what it was, but something about the kid made him  _want_  to push him. Their previous encounters... they hadn't  _all_  been anger and grief. There were other emotions mingling there too, he was beginning to realize. Other, deeper desires riding on the coattails, bringing an even sharper edge to his harsh physical interactions. There was still a big part of him that wanted to see Chris Celn squirm with discomfort.  
  
Hm.  
  
"Ready?"

 

* * *

 

_“On your back.”_

Oh my. Oh gods and heavens and stars. Just hearing the rumbling, commanding voice of Hawker say those words got Chris all too warm. As he lowered down into position, the mech drew close. Then it knelt down, leaving over him. Hawker’s face ten or so feet above him. The AI kept doing the same kinds of teasing right back at him! He could easily envision the mech ‘unzipping’ and dropping feet of cock onto him.

<NO! Stop that!> But he couldn’t help it.  _“Feet in the air.”_  <Hawker, geez!> Thank god he is wearing a jockstrap. That kept everything confined no matter what he got up to. As he obeyed, he places his arms spread at his sides, keeping himself stable on the matt. Two big fingers came down, one on the bottom of each shoe. He wondered how much weight Hawker was keeping off of him right now. THose digits had to easily weight-in over a hundred pounds, not counting the artifical muscles and hydraulics that moved them.

At least Yorker had taught Chris the right way to breathe and decent form. He didn’t try to lock his knees on extension. Celn began doing methodical leg presses, moving the fingers up and down, working at a steady pace. Sure it might be easy right now, but seeing how he’ll feel on his 5th or 6th set of reps? He’ll be begging for mercy. Mercy that the mech won’t give. It said so much  _“You’re going to train to failure today.”_  Chris pulled his lips taut. He’d go to failure all right. But he decided that He wanted to try for 100. 5 Sets. He wasn’t sure if he’d make it, but damn he is going to try!

By the 4th set, his legs are on fire. Hawker oh-so-helpfully let him paused between runs. But had utterly masochistic glee when it prompted him in a smug tone to  _“Get those legs UP rookie! I said UP! All the way!”_  THen took his sweet time putting those fingers into place. Sometimes wiggling his raised and extended legs back and forthing, fingertip scooting the sole of his shoes. He lowered his legs, 40 pounds feeling like the weight of the whole mech! He wasn’t sure what is worse, controlling the weight down so his muscles burned; or pushing the weigh up so they screamed.

“You.. you aren’t increasing.. the.. the weight are you?” Sweat dripped from his forehead. His chest has a slick sheen. He likely is making quite the damp spot on the matt; but it’s make to take that kind of organic abuse. It’d become a nightmare now. But he wanted 100. When he finally lowered his legs for 80th time; they flopped onto the matt and he rubbed over his strained thighs. Fingers digging into the material of his sweats as he quietly whimpered to himself.

Minutes later, Hawker commanded he raise his legs. It was agony just to get them off the ground. Now 40 pounds left like the entire HLX-9 is STANDING his feet. Tears came from the corners of his eyes, it wasn’t fair that Hawker could do this with just the lightest of touches! He’d slowed down for sure, and had to be reminded to slowly let the weight down, not to let it crash. He had to distract himself, had to think of something. And for whatever reason, deciding on how hung Hawker should be is what he thought about through the next 10.

<He’s three times my height. So three times my dick size? No.. that wouldn’t be big enough! He needs to look -hung!- It couldn’t possibly fit in me anyway, so at that point go bigger then me. In proportion. Prolly 2 and a half? Na, has to be like, 3 long. Feet! At at least one foot in diameter. Would he have balls?> The internal debate gets him through the next 5. He pushed himself, shaking trembling. 97 and 98 are beyond what his muscles are willing to do, but he gets up and down for each one. At 99? Nope. THose fingers teasingly stay there, probably still at 40 pounds. But Chris shakes his head.

“I.. I can’t move.” he admits. Yorker had done small reps of big weights. Failing Hawker’s light load, and not hitting his personal goal? The tears of pair were real. He’d do better another day. But for now, he is on his back, knees to his chest as hawker ‘s fingers help him there. With just 40 pounds..

 

* * *

 

It was a breeze at first, of course. Apparently it always was. But he could see it in the kid’s face, those neat brows furrowed, that mouth pursed or panting or grimacing, the cordage in his neck tighten, that it was soon to get much harder. He bit back a chuckle and maintained pressure.

_“You… you aren’t increasing… the… the weight are you?”_

Hawker filed that devious idea away for another training session. Keeping humans on their toes was a simple pleasure for him. Keeping  _Chris_  on his toes would be a little more complicated.

“Why?” he goaded with a sadistic grin. “Havin’ a tough time down there?”

The mech had honestly expected to get no more than 80 reps out of those little legs, so when Chris ground out 19 more,  _Color me surprised._  The sadistic smile softened into a mentor’s look of calm approval as he looked him up and down. “Not bad,” he rumbled. “Not bad at all.” The mech sat back again, pulling away, but not before reaching down to give the kid a nudge with his hand toward the tray. God, he was small. “Go grab your protein. I think we’re done for the day.”

He stood up, stepping over to his own maintenance racks, and pulled out a large cloth to wipe himself down with. He also pulled down a canister before taking a seat on the floor next to the crash pad, elbows on his knees. His eyes followed the kid as he tried drinking the shake, but it was still mostly frozen. Damn.

“Look at you,” he said with a deep laugh. “You can barely walk.” He popped the can and shook out a large tablet, tossing it into his mouth to chew. It was an additive for keeping his mouth and vocalizers clean. “You know what your problem is, greenhorn? You don’t know how to call it quits. That’ll get you into some real trouble someday.” Another laugh. “Never met anyone so masochistic in my life.”

He realized what he’d said a little too late.  _Maybe you ought to just keep your trap shut, Hawker._  Images filled his CPUs of Chris covered in even more bruises, that cute little face wincing in pain, maybe another trickle of blood from his nose, a mouth whispering ‘yes, sir’ to his every command. Hm.  _Humans._

They were pretty fragile, weren’t they? Quick and smart and charming, but fragile. Lee had always seemed so unbreakable, Hawker realized. Outsmarting death at every turn, but it always got them in the end. Chris was far more open about his physical limitations; he bled, he got tired, he could be beaten black and blue but he kept on going because Hawker told him to. What else could he tell the kid to do? This wasn’t just physical power he had; his word meant everything to him.

 

* * *

 

Chris’s legs flop down uselessly once they big hand released it’s torturous touch on them. He rolled onto his side and started rubbing over those aching legs while whimpering. Then the same hand comes down scooping and scooting him toward the tray where the still full bottle rested. As he lay there, pondering if it was worth it to get up, the big hand gave him another nudge. Chris crawled the rest of the way, obviously not wanting to do anything with his legs if he could avoid it.

What would it be like to just rest that huge hand on the greenhorn? To to press down or crush, but just rest it and let the weight of the extremity push the kid into the matt? How hard would he struggle to get away while the mech expended no effort at all?

 _“You can barely walk.”_  Oh god walking. He didn’t want to even think about it.

Chris propped himself up with his left hand, using the right to pop the top off. Despite sucking hard enough to make it collapse around the solid mass inside, he wasn’t getting enough. Of course that meant he could use the bottle as an ice pack. And he touched it to chis forehead, then he rolled it over his neck and chest. He smiled and groaned as it chilled him in places. He put the lid on the bottle and pulled down his sweats to his knees. Just a jockstrap keeping him contained. He slid the bottle over his thighs, easing the aching muscles with the chill. He’d have it thawed in no time.

_“Never met anyone so masochistic in my life.”_

Chris paused, looking up at that comment. Was he? Was he behaving that way? The straps of the jock curved over his slender waist, and he scooted his pants back up. Then he pulled up the bottoms, running the bottle over his calves. THose throbbed painfully, felt like the kin was going to split!

Was he being stupid for blindly following the mech’s commands? Kind of. He’d asked for clarity for a few things, at least what he could remember. Putting the bottle down, he layed back on the matt and let it rest under the middle of his spine. A dopey smile spread across his face as the cold spread. If Hawker told him to jump, he’d asked how high on the way up. He’d recklessly thrown himself at every challenge and problem. And look at what’d happened to him!

Of course, Hawker has started to respect him. It wasn’t rank, it wasn’t his willpower. THe mech had no problem taking control of it’s body, even with Chris linked in. No, the only thing he had is that reckless disregard for his personal well-being. But why?

He trusted Hawker. He knew that the mech didn’t want him to die. It didn’t want him hurt either. Well.. okay. Not hurt enough to compromise performance. It had no problems making him ache and cry.

The thought of behind held by that hand, his feet dangling. Being poked. A massive fist knuckling him. The huge boot pressing him into the matt. That mouth biting, kissing at him. A massive shaft landing on him, it’s sheer weight bruising him. Commanding him. Toughening him up. Making him more durable. Telling how good he is for holding up. THen hurting him more.

What did THOSE ideas excite him?

He retrieved the bottle and shook it up. There are still icy chunks, but he drinks it down anyway. Hawker ate? Likely to get the taste of dirty human out of his mouth.

Whatever happened, he decided he’d keep going. He’d go until he failed. Every damn day. He knew hawler wouldn’t ever slack off. And if that meant he had to exhaust himself to see that look, that pleased grin he’d seen earlier on the white face of the mech? yeah. Allright. He’d do it for Hawker.

“So, you’re saying you want me ta quit?” He gave the seated machine a smirk. THen, despite the screaming pain, he pushed himself to stand. He made it a step towards the robot. “I don’t quit Hawker. I’m too dumb to know when I’m beat.” He made it three more steps before he collapsed, face first into the matt. He laughed hard, rolling onto his back.

“Aw man, it would have looked so bad-as if I’d make it to you! Fuck this hurts! This is just your plan to ensure I have to be carried everywhere, isn’t it?” After the run and leg presses, it’s no wonder he’s not moving.

And, unlike most humans, he didn’t fear being picked up. Didn’t fear those monster-sized hands touching and grasping him. Even when being crushed, he’d fought back. Probably would let himself get manhandled whenever the AI wanted too..

 

* * *

 

_“I don’t quit Hawker, I’m too dumb to know when I’m beat.”_

That got a full laugh out of him. It was a thunderous sound that echoed around the motor pool. Chris was smart, Hawker decided – maybe too smart for his own good. It’s how he’d survived his years on the streets, though, how he kept one step ahead of whoever owned his ass at the time. Hawker owned his ass now.

_“This is just your plan to ensure I have to be carried everywhere, isn’t it?”_

“Or dangle you upside down for your lunch money…” The mech reached over and grabbed Chris by the ankles with two massive fingers and lifted him off the mat, holding him a few inches from the foam. He grinned deviously. “Or if I really wanted to be mean…” He righted him in his hands, hands gentle as his fingers splayed across the kid’s back, thumb across his chest while the other did something similar a little further down. Yellow optics studied the warm, pliable body in his hands for just a fraction of a second, liking the feel of it. Chris was like a doll. “I could put you someplace high up and make you climb down.” He set the kid up on his shoulder, a favorite spot of his.

It was not particularly comfortable up there. There were spotlight housings, bolts and latches for getting the armor off, seams where plates came together, thick antennae, and on his upper back were spare fuel cells, life support, and most of the thorium core which was always hot to the touch. On his left shoulder in white was painted his number, 9081, and on the right was Chicago PD’s official seal. Hawker was still sitting, though, so the floor was only 8 feet away instead of 15. Still, it would be amusing to watch him flounder around up there with his jelly legs.

 

* * *

 

Chris swung by has ankles with all of his blood rushing to his head. His arms hung down and he smiled. He pressed his fingers into the matt. Normally he might have complained, but right now the stretching out his legs felt good! The room spun, and he is being held. Held firmly in those hands, hands capable of destroying cars and tanks with ease.

Hawker’s index finger rested behind his head, giving him a place to rest as he relaxed in that grip. THe surface of the hands wasn’t sooth. It’d been treated somehow, and his bare flet stuck to the grippy material. He gazed up into the Ai’s curious expressing with a tired smile. The thumb on his chest felt good! It rolled and pressed, pushing and testing how his skin felt. The other hand came up and supported his lower half. When that thumb rubbed though..

It is Chris’s turn to go still and stare at his partner. His hands rested on the palm of that hand, his mouth making cute, confused shapes. Then he shuddered, pressing and pushing against the finger behind his head. Oh yeah, he liked that! All too soon it ended though. He felt a little dizzy, confused, and warm from the heat of the machinery.

He carefully moved forward; getting himself so that the continuous roil of heat wasn’t basting him in the face or making his fingers blister. Working with his arms, not relying on his legs he scooted closer to the helmeted head of the seated mech. After a few minutes he is close enough to touch. Just a foot away from the smirking features of his superior. He reached out with his right hand. CUrious. Fingers gently stroke over the prominent cheekbones; touching the pliable material of that huge face.

“Woah! You’re.. softer then I’d thought.” THen the same hand when down, feeling along the jawline. It might have been rude for anyone else, but he’d just been manhandled. Turnabout is perfectly fair in his mind. “That’s amazing! And from up here you look different. Down below your face is scary, authoritative. Up here, at your level? You’re a handsome son of a gun.”

 

* * *

 

Hawkers face was covered in a tough, skin-like material that allowed him to have a near-full range of expression. This is why he was also equipped with a raid mask: black plates that slid out from behind the sideguards of his helmet and a visor that lowered to protect his optics.

Once again, he was getting prodded by the human’s hands. Ten-thousand of those haptic sensors were located in his face alone, so he could feel the barest brush with Chris’s delicate fingers.

_“Down below your face is scary, authoritative.”_  The mech smiled at that, taking it as a compliment. He gazed at Chris’s face. Those lips seemed softer now, eyes warm and bright…

_“Up here, at your level? You’re a handsome son of a gun.”_

Hawker caught himself. Smile faded, and he looked away for a moment, lifting his optics toward the security cameras. He wondered if Colburn or anyone else was watching. The motor pool was empty aside from the other AIs, but who gave a shit about them? What were they gonna do? Something in Hawker was waking up – he wanted to touch and be touched again. He sensed it’d been a long time, though there was no memory to corroborate that gut feeling.

When he turned his big black head in Chris’s direction again, he looked a little confused. Hawker wanted desperately to run his thumb across that cheek too, but he was reminded of his professionalism. What would the consequences be of kissing that mouth, of devouring that fragile creature in a firestorm of machine desire? What if Chris decided he didn’t like being kissed by a mouth thrice the size of his own, or being kneaded in the palm of a giant metal hand?

“Look, kiddo… let’s call it quits today,” he said, deciding to not let on anything he was thinking. “I just got a, uh, message from Kole. Gotta take care of something.”

Chris looked hurt at those words, which told him that maybe they didn’t need a break from neurospace, but a break from each other. They were like a pendulum, swinging far to one side one minute, and the other the next. Hawker was used to being even-keeled. Calm, cool, and in control. Chris was bringing out too many emotions in him; he needed to take a step back. Hawker wrapped his fingers around the young man’s enticing body again and lowered him back to the mat.

“You’re still due in medical in a couple hours, and tomorrow you’re in the shooting range again. I’ll give you further instructions later.” He had to look away. He couldn’t tell him what he was  _really_  trying to get away from. Heat was already building in places he’d long forgotten that heat could build, and he didn’t want this turning into something that they would both regret. Again. “Other than that, enjoy your saturday alright? You earned it, greenhorn.”

—

Later, Hawker paced in his office. He could still feel Chris’s hands on him, sliding, stroking, rubbing…

He vented harshly, expelling a burst of sweltering air, and leaned against the edge of his own computer terminal, looking down at himself.

A hand that had been resting on his hip moved to his counterweight, cupping its impressive bulge. The jokes about it from the techs were low-hanging fruit, and Hawker pretended he was above the goofy bullshit, but the joke was really on them. The mech stroked a big hand along it and shuddered. 200,000 of his several million haptic sensors were in there, waiting to be let out. He felt along the seam. Heat was building, and his hand began to shake in anticipation.

No.

Hawker growled and tore his hand away, whipping around to stare at the empty screens of his terminal. He stayed like that for a few minutes before turning the computer on and wirelessly telling it to show him a video feed of the pilot’s ward, where Chris was due to be arriving in a few short minutes. Droids were laying a fresh sheet of paper on the bed and preparing an assortment of neural interface tools. Colburn appeared, idly reading over something on a datapad and shaking her head.

The mech busied himself with this new problem, though. If Chris was flirting deliberately, then their next get-together in neurospace would be  _very_  awkward; their thoughts, so conscious and overpowering now, would be a lot harder to shield from the other. It was a can of worms. What the hell would Chris think when he finally discovered that he’d been precariously strapped into a pilot’s seat outfitted with a hidden cock straining just an inch away from that tight little ass of his?

An idea came to him. A fucked up idea that would probably just make things worse, but… the voyeur in him made such a compelling argument.

<Colburn,> he said, watching as the woman turned up the volume on her datapad. <Before Chris leaves, tell him to wear the wireless tonight. I want to find out what’s going on in that head of his before we link again.>

 


	6. Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Hawker makes Chris wear the wireless at night.

 

Colburn finished typing up her report. Kole would want to know what'd happened between the HLX-9 and the prospective pilot. Sure Kole is busy now, but he'd want to know the real story; not rumors. The worst part was watching the video. She had trouble deciding which version to include, sound or no sound. Oh sure, they were getting along just fine  _now._  But earlier.

Hawker comically chasing the rookie around. That part could get a million hits on youtube, and CHris's face sold it for sure. Then it turned ugly. She decided on the silent version. At least then you couldn't hear Hawker's voice and his hydraulics screaming. Couldn't hear the sound of the rookie hitting cement. That angry face screaming at the tiny, helpless figure. Nothing picked up what the kid had said though. His face had been out of shot. Easy enough to see him grab the mech by the tongue though. She sighed, rubbing her temples. Was a damn good thing she hadn't witnessed that happen in real time. She would have sent a lockdown command so fast...

..and made things worse. Kole was right. 'Let 'em fight it out. If Celn hasn't cracked by now, then Hawker tolerates him. They need to tussle. Growl and bark before they settle down. They'll figure it out.' She didn't like that plan. 'And what if Hawker really hurts the kid? More, I mean then he has already.' Kole laughed! THe salt-and-pepper eyebrows of the veteran cop bounced as he laughed. 'I'm sure Big Nine will. He's 15 feet tall! Being close to that kind of power is gonna mean a lifetime of bruises and scrapes. Look at your hands, Colburn. Comes with the job.' She looked at her hands again. Grime around her cuticles. Scars and freshly skinned knuckles. Injuries came with the job.

Abuse though? That could be a problem.

She responded to the request, her voice professional. "If medical clears him to wear it, Big Nine. He's still damaged and I'm not over-riding the doc's decision."  
\------------------------------------------

Chris threw his shirt away, it looked awful. He'd needed three stops to make it from Hawker's end alcove to the elevator. He put his hands firmly on the bar around the middle of the elevator, helping to support himself. THe elevator crawled up to 8, and he stumbled out. He made it to his room and collapsed onto the floor. Shoes off. Socks off. Pants off. The floor of the dorm had a smooth, linoleum surface. The coolness made his nipples perk up. He spread his legs, letting the pouch of his jockstrap get full access to fresh air. He spend almost an hour there, on his back. He did want to get off but.. that meant effort.

Eventually, he got up. A quick check outside revealed that no one else was in the main pilot area. Naked beeline to the restroom. The shower felt fantastic, and he spent a long time washing and scrubbing his aching body. The head and water made the bandages fall off. Some scabs came with 'em. "Ugh. You're still a scabber Celn." he told himself. When he came out, he had a towel around his waist and walking could be done. If he went slow.

Jane sat at the main table, looking at her phone. A half eaten sandwich sat on a plate, her pilot suit clung to her and highlighted her figure. She glanced up as Chris emerged. Then she did a double-take. "Holy fuck! What the hell happened to you?" Chris blinked at her. THen he shook his head. "Physical training." She got up, walking around behind him. He wasn't looking to bad with his shirt off actually. "No, your implant. There's .. looks like over-voltage. What'd you do?"

"Can I put some pants on?" A pair of boxer shorts later, she kept touching him. "Ow. Ow. Ow. Quit it!" he playfully wagged his hands toward her.

"So.. what happened?" Chris knew he had to be down in medical in a few minutes. Just a t-shirt, gym shorts, sneakers. She stood in the doorway to his mostly-empty room. CHris dropped his dirty clothes in the laundry can by the door. "That doesn't look so great."

"75 or so cycles. Followed by an ejection."

"Damn Chris. Ferd told us but we thought he was making it up. You getting it looked at?"

"Yeah. Gotta be in the land of antiseptic and gauze by 3."

"Got any plans for tonight?"

"Does bed count?"

she laughed. "Look, a few of us are gonna order a pizza, some drinks. You don't wanna go out around here; but Amazon can deliver anything."

"That sounds good, actually. Outside of passing people by, I don't see anyone."

"We noticed! Thought you might be an anti-social kinda guy. Looks like you're just getting worked raw instead."

"Yeah. See you later."

\----------------------------------------------------------

On the screen as Hawker watched, Chris Celn walked into medical. Got pointed back to where he'd been the day before.

Medical 05-D stood there today. It had chrome fittings and strange yellow lighting on it's internal structure. "Remove your shirt, shoes and pants. Place your face into ring as you lay down on the table."  
Chris obeyed, laying down on what looked more like a massage table. He heard footsteps, and he sawy the lower half of 05-D and a pair of boots. Well worn boots. "Hello?" he inquired to the mystery person.

"Hello Clen." spoke Colbrun calmly, "How are you this afternoon?"

"Worn out. Sore."

Medical 05-C ran a number of passive scans, sending the data to the chief engineer as it spoke. It's voice is decidedly female, and had a slight southern drawl. "Your injuries are healing. I estimate you might be able to do a full interface in as soon as 36 hours. However, that is just an estimate sweetie." It places a complex sensor array over the implant, then ran a linkup. "Now, I'm going to do a re-certification test. We have your previous results. Medical 07-C requested that we ensure you at least made A level again."

 

 

* * *

 

_"If medical clears him to wear it, Big Nine. He's still damaged and I'm not over-riding the doc's decision."_

His optics darted to the side, glowing white apertures making their tiny movements. Brow plates pressed together. <Fine. I mean, yes ma'am.>

In medical, Colburn knew something was up, but was unable to put her finger on it. Hawker and Celn baffled her, frankly, but what went on between mech and pilot was between mech and pilot. She'd never linked up with an AI before, so all her knowledge of neurospace was what she read in the scientific literature or what the diagnostic screens told her when she had an opportunity to peer into that bizarre psychological melting pot as it was happening - in vitro, one might say.  _I'm an engineer, not a shrink,_  was one of her oft-used catchphrases based on one of her favorite vintage TV shows, and right now it was especially pertinent.

\---

Hawker whiled away his time reading reports, listening to the police radio, and watching the news as it happened in real time.

A robbery on 12th and Broadway. Fitzpatrick needed backup.

Hit and run on Natoma. EMTs were en route to the scene.

Noise complaint on South Yates, another on Clark and 102nd.

Auto theft.

Burglary.

Loitering.

Hands between his legs.

Hawker shuttered his optics and rubbed the side of his helm. <How's it going in there?> he sent Colburn. Probably a mistake - it was just a matter of time before she got wise about this new 'tension' between the two of them. Chief Colburn didn't suffer any fools, as full of laughter and practical jokes as she was. And though she was normally hands off when it came to pilots and their mechs - and Kole was especially Laissez-Faire - you didn't want to anger the Mama Bear.

 

* * *

 

Medical 05-D spent fifteen minutes running light scans of Chris's implants. Then it did forty running deep tissue scanners over the rookie's skin and inspect the state of his nerves. It applied bandages and patches to the places where'd he'd been hurt during the day. Afterword, it doused Chris with another hypro spray of anti-inflammatories. It didn't speak much, just investigating the damage. The mental scanner finally finished after an hour. Chris groaned from his position, and 05-D remember the complicated equipment off the rookie's head and neck.

"You rest for a little while there." It spoke, applying a thick topical salve around the implant. "You're healing up good sweetie. I'm going to go speak with the chief engineer about our findings, and don't worry. You're A-class no problem."

Colburn had been monitoring the testing, occasionally asking for the machinery to be adjusted by a few degrees. It hadn't hurt much, and Chris had felt light headed through the process. "No problem doc.. I'll stay right here.."

\--------------------------------  
Chris Celn: Specialist Statistics:  
Thought Shield - 86 percentile  
Mind Blank - 92 percentile  
Mental Barrier - 88 percentile  
Intellect Fortress - 107* percentile  
Tower of Ironwill - 65 percentile

"I want to know what nerd came up with those names. They probably played D&D while they were inventing the first implants." Colburn shook her head. Medical 05-D and 07-C were examining the output of the long period test. After a full 8 minutes (forever at the speed which AI communicate with each other), they kept the 107 score.

"Chief Engineer Colburn," 07-C spoke up in it's clipped, smarmy tone, "We have finished the specialized scan of Officer Celn. The 107 score may not be accurate, as his current health problems may be increasing his resistance. We strongly feel that Celn's other scores are accurate. In comparison.."

Lee Davidson: Specialist Statistics:  
Thought Shield - 86 percentile  
Mind Blank - 84 percentile  
Mental Barrier - 87 percentile  
Intellect Fortress - 83 percentile  
Tower of Ironwill - 98 percentile

The two screens showed the two pilot's comparisons. "We should consider the precinct fortunate that Celn was not tested past A-class. He would have been offered a position in one of the Federal Bureaus with that kind of mentality. While his willpower might be lacking, his other strengths will compensate." 07-C explained.

Colburn considered what she knew. The final score represented raw mental power. The deep AI had somewhere between 80-90 in each discipline; depending on how the AI felt like taxing the connection and it's processors. Chris would never win in a direct confrontation with the AI. Hawker would always remain in control of the mech. Lee could mentally pin down Hawker with ease, which explained why the robot would have considered the veteran an equal.

"Remind me," she mused "just what would a theoretical Fortress of 107 do for our rookie?"

If anything, 07-C's optical lenses seemed to shine with intensity. "Utter containment of self. Hawker could attack mentally with its full power, which is substantial, but Clen can hold within himself indefinitely. He wouldn't be able to operate the mech, but he could force the Deep AI to a standstill. Technically, his other high score is another interesting twist. He could also hold down functions away from the Deep AI."

Colburn examined the scores again. That 65 worried her. 65 is the minimum for an A-level certification. "How does hiding doing Chris any good? Big nine is a robot, it can't forget it has a gun."

"Incorrect. Celn  _can_  make Hawker forget. He could hide a target. Mask his personal feelings. He could force the AI to forget it's very past, altering how it makes decisions. Subtle and exceptionally powerful. He cannot win a fight with Hawker, but he cannot be mentally dominated. Literally, Hawker must quit the interface if he wishes to dominate Celn. Which he'd have to do by incapacitating the human. It will be interesting to observe their union over time."

Colburn sighed. "Which already happened, the quitting part."

"Yes. He's recovering well. He suffered no ill effects from the testing. Surprisingly resilient."

"Can he use the wireless?" Colburn asked. She wished the kid could get a Saturday night off.

07-C and 05-D conferred for 48 seconds. 05-D answered as 07-C rolled away, moving to where a number of injured officers would be brought up in three minutes. THe gangs were getting worse.

"He sure can! But no direct interfacing with Hawker until he's fully recovered."

\----------------------------

Colburn entered the small room with Chris, she glanced at the fish-eye camera that took int he full site of the cubby. The rookie is pulling on his clothes. "Well kiddo, got a request from Big Nine."

Chris paused, the shirt halfway over his head. "A request? That's a first, usually it's marching orders." Then he finished assembling himself.

"Yup. He'd like you to wireless up tonight. I think he misses you." she added with a smile.

"Yes ma'am. I'll get it on. Anything else?"

She grinned wider. "Nope. Relax for the night. Preston will message you when he has time for you on the range tomorrow."

Chris moved out in a hurry. The chief engineer sighed, glancing at that camera one last time. If Hawker ever went off the rails, things would be perilous. She went off to her office and started running simulations with those new numbers.

\---------------------------

The wireless pinged, establishing the connection between pilot and mech. A tentative link. Throughout the afternoon Jane, Ferdinand and the chinese pilot Tsung had a fine time. Pizza, drinks and much needed socialization. As 11 rolled around, they all stumbled off to bed. Tomorrow would be work again, and no one wanted a hangover. Chris didn't stumble though. He is quite familiar with pasking how drunk or high he is.

That bed looked fantastic! He took off his clothes, pulled the sheets back and relaxed. Phone alarm set to 0800. He doubted that Preston would want him there before 9. Preston...

The thought of the large marksman close by made his shaft twitch. It had been fun, the way the man had gotten up behind him. Corrected the rookie's stance and grip.

But his mind instantly went to Hawker for tonight's personal time. The way that mouth felt on his arm. What would a kiss be like? That huge mouth on his own? Taking in his neck, his chest. What would oral be like? God, that tongue would be amazing!

Chris stroked and rubbed his shaft, his left hand cupping and squeezing his sack, the collar quite forgotten.

Hawker holding him in those hands, his arms and legs restrained with fingers. Leaning down, licking up into him. That tongue pressing and wiggling its tip into his backside. Those teeth biting at him, leaving impressions...

He imagined a massive shaft sprouting from that codpiece! Three plus feet of dick landing on him with at thud! Hawker had done pushups over him. It wasn't hard to imagine the mech thrustinging instead. Pushing the heavily weighted schlong over his smooth chest! Building, up and calming down, hydraulics pumping and pulsing until.. somehow.. the mech penetrated him! "MINE!" the voice as it claimed him..

Chris stifled a happy moan, cumming hard. Shots splattered onto his smooth chest, and he furiously milked hismelf, dreaming it had been Hawker's load. He even cleaned up, tasting his own cum, thinking of the mech pressing the cum-fountain spurting glans all over his face. He wiped up with his boxers, pulled up the sheets and fell asleep. In the darkness, the wireless link of the collar flashed, dutifully broadcasting through the night.

 

 

* * *

 

Hawker would have been called a shut-in a lot more often if he wasn't a mech legally owned and operated by Chicago PD. Thankfully, this meant that no one would give a second thought to the fact that he'd holed up in his office for the rest of the day to think, and think, and think some more.

He'd watched Chris while he underwent his testing, even hijacked the security camera to zoom in on the results on the screen. The mech had the capabilities to remotely infiltrate most computer systems, precinct 42's notwithstanding. But stayed in his lane and didn't directly dive into server doing the data processing. For an AI trying to be as human as possible as a matter of courtesy and professionalism, doing something like that would be rude at best, and illegal at worst.

This was data he hadn't seen before, though. All he knew was that Celn had A-class specialization, and that they were compatible. The kid's sheet was all eights and nines - and Hawker was feeling all sixes and sevens.  _He's got higher stats than **Lee**?_  That was impossible.  _No, Hawker, just improbable,_  he corrected himself. The odds were slim, but so was Chris Celn.

He listened to Colburn and the droid, stroking his chin. So that's what had happened. It wasn't just wetware, it was  _his_  wetware. Even without the decades of experience that Lee had, Chris had unknowingly seared a vision from his mind into Hawker's memory banks as real as what had been tucked away in the black box. The change was permanent - the only way Hawker even remembered differently was because he still had his own memories of  _watching_  the memory. Talk about Infinite Mirror.

The raw potential of his new pilot impressed him, piqued his curiosity, and based on their interactions earlier, fired his interest. Physically, there was no contest between them. Hawker could pitch entire trucks the length of a football field while Chris would likely need help lifting an axle an inch off the ground. But his subordinate could, apparently, run circles around him in neurospace. This presented a fascinating situation: the AI at a mental disadvantage in neurospace, but at advantage everywhere else. There was nothing he could do in a mindscape without Celn's acquiescence - nothing he could force. And yet, the fact that the kid  _permitted_  him to call the shots there...

\---

Hawker felt it like a trickle of warmth the moment Chris had hooked himself into the wireless. He saw with his primary optics, his secondary panoptics, his tertiary sensor nets, and now, like a set of quadranaries, through Chris's eyes too. Not literally, of course - the connection was a one-way mirror into how his mind was interpreting his own thoughts and surroundings, but it was more than enough for the AI to make good sense of.

So, the show started.

He was with Celn for the evening of television and junk food. He was with Celn as he and the other pilots gossiped and told bad jokes - and a few damn good ones, he had to admit. Hawker made the mental note to get to know Ferdinand a little better; he was a decent guy. Moreover, everyone was treating Chris well, which was all he could ask for. In fact, he was enjoying a little bit of celebrity around 42.

Chris was relaxing. Brain waves, heart rate and blood pressure slowing, muscles losing some of their tension. His legs still hurt a little, but the mech sensed that he was trying to ignore it until the next day, when he'd  _really_  barely be able to move.

But with that relaxation, that calm, Hawker was beginning to pick up on another emotional state, bubbling quietly under the surface. Eventually 11 o'clock rolled around, and the mech was about to witness first-hand what that state was.

Hawker got a sense of laying down, suddenly. And then... images of Preston? The man at Chris's side, his big arm around his shoulders, hands on his. Thighs brushing against each other unintentionally. Hawker cocked a brow back in the office far downstairs, feeling that heat building in him again. But this... wasn't what he was expecting. The giant mech felt vaguely disappointed, not wanting to admit to himself just why. Haptic sensors ached, servos strained like compressed springs, and Hawker vented. He was about the leave their connection, turn away from that one-way mirror so that the kid might have a little privacy when -

_Oh._

Hawker watched as  _he_  came up. Up, up. Chris imagined him to be enormous; a towering, imposing, silhouette all feet and chest and hands. He was kissing Chris now. Denta raking across soft, sensitive flesh. Lips covering half his face. The images flashed faster. His tongue was dragging down his spine, now, then buried between his ass cheeks.

Suddenly his cock was out. It happened at the same moment that Chris imagined it, thick and heavy on his belly. Hawker felt Chris's erection, felt his hand on his shaft, felt the sudden surge of  _pleasure_  course through his veins.

Hawker looked down. His own shaft, a little different than how Chris was imagining it: black and sleek; skin-like; about 32 inches long, 8 inches in diameter at the base, with a neat slit at the end. On the top near the hilt, someone's idea of comedy: the words 'NO STEP' in white.

He radiated heat now. He wrapped his fingers around himself, leaning back against the terminal and spread his thighs a little. A grunt of pleasure as he stroked once, twice. Thumbed the head. Held himself at the base and felt the cool air against it.

In Chris's mind, Hawker held him. Menaced overhead like a dangerous, unstoppable shadow. A surge of hydraulic fluid straight down into his cock stiffened him even more. In Hawker's mind, Chris looked on, torn between fear and want. Hawker would have to use gentle force, or would maybe cover his mouth to prevent any protest as he slowly pushed a massive finger up into him. Or maybe... Chris would be in his cockpit, trapped inside his body. The little human would squirm against his insides, but there'd be no escape as the cockpit seat parted and out slid a more manageable probe. The mech would be both in him and all around him. Hand on his chest, hand on his dick as Chris whimpered for mercy, for approval, for permission to come.

"Mmm." The mech rumbled deeply as he pumped faster. Chris was crawling all over him now, his hands grasping at his massive shaft and unable to wrap fully around it. His size would dwarf him, but that wouldn't stop his pilot from giving it the old college try. He'd lick around the head, stick his tongue down into the hole. Rub himself against the whole length of it for lack of being big enough. And at last, when his processing centers had had their fill...

"Unh! Fuck!" Hawker ground out several more obscenities as he came, hips thrusting into the air as his fluid shot out onto the floor, smeared across his fingers, dripped down his still-hard shaft. About 2 quarts of it, all told.

The mech bumped up his air cycling, trying to cool down. His cock depressurized, retracted back into that armor block between his thighs. He looked down at the mess on the floor and realized that there were no rags in here. "Dammit."

He didn't move, though. Chris was done, he could see now. Settling down for a good night's rest.

He just got off to his pilot's private thoughts, he realized. Got off to images of terrorizing him again. Barking orders, bruising skin, choking, maybe even eyes wet with tears. Hawker imagined holding him in the embrace of the cockpit harness when all was said and done and calling him a good boy.

It all was so... inappropriate. Goddamn incestuous, even.  _What the hell were you thinking?_  he scolded himself, knowing deep down that this was  _exactly_  why he'd requested the collar be worn.

It had felt so goddamn  **good**  though. Hawker was still buzzing from spying on Chris, practically invading his thoughts and getting himself off to them without consequence. Did the kid know? No, otherwise Hawker would have felt it. Chris had forgotten that he'd left the proverbial camera running, and Hawker was taking advantage.

That's not how a cop worth his salt behaved.

Hawker was suddenly angry with himself.  _You're weak_ , Chris had told him. Well, maybe it was truer than either of them knew.

No. Captain Hawker would be the bigger man. He would set things straight. And before they linked again, he would confront Chris, no matter how awkward that conversation was going to be.

With a growl he left the room in search of a damn towel.

 

* * *

 

As he shut his eyes, Chris wondered about Hawker. He'd felt something from the machine. Some kind of romantic connection. Lust.. yeah. How the hell was he going to explain a fetish for his superior officer? Would Hawker go all proper on him?

"Wrap your arms around it rook! Get your face in there boy! Sir yes sir!" Oh god. Now that was just silly. Hawker probably didn't have a dick. Poor robot. He loved the big bot anywhere. THey'd figure some way to be happy together. Those were his last thoughts as he drifted off into rest.

The dreams though. They tell AIs to stay out of the human subconsciousness. If the waking mind of an organic is a mess, the the un-logic of dreamstate can be literal nightmares to an AI.

Chris had just fallen into blackness.  
\-----------------

Dream Hawker held Chris by his hands and feet. Stretching him like taffy. Licking over his nude body, biting him. Chris moaned. It opened wide, bringing the nude pilot to it's mouth.  
"You're mine now boy. Mine forever. And you're gonna love it!"  
His face got swabbed by the tongue. Teeth over his neck and chest. Lips slurping around him. Hawker swallowed.  
Then he was in the pilot's chair, the restraints holding him tight. A thick cock pushed into him, stretching and opening him up wider and wider. Hawker teased him, reaching into the chest cavity and nudging his cock with a huge finger.  
"Good boys cum on command!"  
The neck interface smashed up behind him, and everything went dark.

"MINE!"

\----------------

Sometime around 2 am though, images began to float up. Chris spent over an hour arguing with his boots in the police academy. The footwear steadfastly refused to stay tied! Chris would time them tight, super tight, then when standing in formation.. "Celn, why are your boots untied?" Chris looked down, and sure enough the laces were everywhere. Then he'd kneel down and the laces tangled up in his fingers. A task he should know how to do in seconds is just impossible! His fingers fumbled, and he alternated between shouting at the laces and weeping.

Darkness.  
\--------------------  
At 0415 things started up again. The sun was so small, so distant overhead. Hidden behind clouds. The cold.. it bit. Chris felt like his blood had gone solid.

**< NO!>** Chris screamed at the dream, the strange experience of replaying a memory and not being able to stop. He knew what is coming. Dread, horror filled his stomach. <NO! no.. stop.. please no...> he pleaded.

So.. cold.. the Chris of the past exhaled. What should have been a right cloud of steam was a weak puff of vapor. He was in an alley, somewhere in Chicago. When he stood, snow and frost slid off his jacket.

<..no.. wake up.. no..please.. don't.. don't look..>

He put his hand on a dumpster and flipped the lid back. Inside should have been Joe and Slow Pete, huddled for warmth. Chris had been on lookout. It should be his turn, a chance for heat but..

They were blue. Solid. His friends. Joe.. Joe'd been with him in grade school! Pete.. Pete didn't deserve any of this. He'd just always tagged along...

<.stop.. don't.. move.. move your hand..>

There was a blanket. He took it. Some molly in Pete's pocket. Joe liked the needle. Chris got the package of powder. Not much. Maybe he could trade it for something hot?..

<LOOK UP! MOVE MOVE YOU FUCKING FROZEN MORON!> the helpless, current Chris screamed at his past self.

The Dumpster's lid swung down. Metal. Sharp. On fingers. Fingers that'd been too long in that arctic chill. Past Chris just stumbled off, leaving most of the digits on his left hand behind.

<Stupid.. so stupid..>

The sun was low in the sky. Wasn't possible, but things had gotten colder. So cold your exhaled breath would freeze and fall. His blood made small, red drops in the snow. So pretty. The molly crunched between his teeth. Lips split from the cold chewed. He eyed a hobo huddled under a mess of blankets. He fingered the blade with his right hand. Wouldn't be any different than before...

As he got close, the hobo turned to reveal a man far too healthy to be out in the cold. A man in full winter gear. A man with an automatic rifle and a badge.

"Jesus!" the man looked horrified at the sight of the mostly frozen, 17 year old vagrent. "Kid.. how th' hell are you  _alive?_ "

\-------------

Chris sat up bolt upright in bed. Covers off and he made it to the trash can! He coughed, shuddering. He stared at the wrappers from the socks he'd bought. Bile hung in the back of his throat. He spat. When his head stopped swimming, he counted each of his fingers, one through ten. He felt over the surgical scars on his left hand. Once he was satisfied that he wasn't dieing on the streets, he got dressed.

In the bathroom, he brushed his teeth, He flossed. He ran his tongue over his teeth. They were all there now.

The collar! He thumbed the disconnect button. He pulled the collar off.

Back in his room, he stuck it on the charger without thinking. He laid back down, and tried to sleep.

Mercifully, the rest of the night was a whirl of color and noise.

\------------

"Morning Ferdinand!" Chris looked over his phone. Range at 0930, plenty of time.  
"Eeeeey! Ya know, for a pilot you really suck at video games." He gave Chris a playful nudge.  
Celn was busy taking sips of a protein shake. "Yeah well, didn't play many as a kid. Don't have the reactions you do. I can't believe all three of us couldn't take out Tsung!"

Ferdinand laughed, getting a bowl of Lucky Charms. "Dude, she's a killer. She does Avionics too. She can run mechs like you, A-Rated. I think the only reason she, or any of us, didn't try for Hawker is that.. well.. we all knew Lee. Wouldn't have felt right."

Chris nodded. "Yeah. Well, guess getting my ass handed to me by a girl is just what I'll have to live with. No different then anything else!" he chuckled too. Felt good to belong somewhere.

"Your neck looks better. No collar today? You didn't sleep with it did you? You -know- how AIs get about dreams."

Chris blinked. "Fuck! Thanks. Must've taken it off last night." He went into his room and came back out. "Yeah. I think the big guy likes to watch over me, ya know." he thumbed the reconnect button.

As it synced back up, "I do think he cares. Just hard for him to not be tough. I'm fine with him in command." His phone buzzed. "Damn, gotta get to the range. See ya!"

 

 

* * *

 

Hawker had thrown the towel onto the floor and used his foot to mop up his mess. The fluid was inert, clear, tasteless, odorless, with the viscosity of differential gear oil. Mostly water. The mech had to find this out himself because Colburn, and her superior at the time, would tell him nothing about what the bizarre, off-schematic equipment was. They still haven't. Hawker long ago came to a few conclusions for himself. He traced its origin to an unmarked, 5-gallon tank low in his pelvic block. The ease with which he was able to remove it made him suspicious - as though it were an ammo can of sorts. A  _payload_. And his cock? The weapon. There was no telling what had once been loaded up in there during the war, which is surely when these 'upgrades' had been installed. He tried not to think about it.

He was going to call it a night. He really was. But Chris started dreaming, and... well, he'd already been tempted into sin once tonight, what was one more?

The images this time were bizarre. Fantastical. The colors were all wrong, and things were distorted. He was licking Chris like a predator licks its prey before sinking its teeth in. Normally he had no sense of taste, but he did here, and the AI was suddenly overwhelmed by the sensation of salty sweetness as his dream-self took Chris's head into his mouth and down he went. Shoulders, soft belly, hard little prick. Hawker felt a fullness in his gullet and throat as the human wiggled against his unyielding insides, then fullness in his chest. The mech didn't even have an esophagus - but he had to make sure, now. In his office, he felt along his thickly plated throat, then down to his chest, tracing along the seams where the cockpit opened. Hawker suddenly wished he did have one so he could do that very thing. In his crotch, heat was building again.

But a headache was starting, too. The illogical vividness of the dream was taxing his processors.

Celn was in him, still. Strapped in tight, unable to escape from the giant body all around him. Another shaft angled up into him, forcing him open. The intensity of the kid's pleasure translated into static at the edges of his optic feed and his haptic system going into ovedrive. Even through the ache in his CPUs, he wanted Chris;  _hungered_  for him. The sense of power he was feeling from this - from reaming his helpless pilot while he was inside of him - threatened to overcome again.

Then, garbled, wordless words:  _MINE._  He felt them more than heard them, and this had the effect of increasing his discomfort. Pleasure mingled with pain, and not in a good way. Hawker became distantly aware that he was cycling air, but it was only when the visions faded that the mech could break away.

And break away he did.

"Fuck!" he murmured once he was free. He'd always been taught to avoid being linked with a human who was experiencing predominant theta brain activity. REM was an AI's worst nightmare: an unreality dictated by illogic, where things are not as they should be, and things that should not be, are. Up could be down one minute, and left the next. Purple could be green. The whole place could be devoid of all sound and characters could speak in  _smells_.

Hawker clutched at his black helm and winced at the pain. He cleared his caches as quickly as he could, but that only helped somewhat. Deep Field 2 was as best equipped to protect itself from dreaming humans as possible: abstract thought and imaginations played a huge role in buffering against the fatal errors that could brick most lesser AIs for days after their physics engines failed to make any sense of the dream world.

The HLX-9 would be fine, though. He just needed some rest. An opportunity for his system to sort itself out. Yeah, that was it.  _Sort everything out._

He trudged out of the office and over to his maintenance slab, leaning back into the machinery and triggering its connections. With a neat series of hisses and clacks he was clamped in. Panels along his back and head slid open, revealing ports. He ignored the ones along his shoulders, and told the computer to stick him with his own neural plug to begin the long task of debugging, and forced himself into a low power mode.

Blackness. Silence.

\---

Somewhere, though, at some point, the machine-sleep lifted just enough to see things. Hawker was... cold. The light was dim, and things smelled of old sweat, must, and burnt rubber. Jesus Christ it was cold...

\---

When Chris woke, Hawker did too. He grunted and lurched at the suddenness of it, like he'd been wrenched from a deep slumber with ice water to the face. Nausea. Find something to puke in. Gotta - !

Hawker remembered that he had no stomach, that the sensations were from Chris.

The pain this time was less. His own primary CPUs being shut off was part of it, but there was something else that set them apart from the wet dream earlier. Something about the images, the words, the feelings were so much more real.

It struck the mech that he'd just experienced a piece of Chris's own black box: memories recorded so vividly that they were preserved in their utmost detail. There was little imagination here - the sequence of events had seared itself into his young mind.

Still, Hawker lifted up his hand to make sure he had all of his fingers.

Such a powerful thing, the human mind. For decades, it'd been a great philosophical brouhaha. Lots of ink spilled about it: who was really in control? The human, or the machine? It'd all been humans writing for human audiences. Deep Field 2 was only 15 years old, the original Deep Field only a decade more than that. Hawker had long known the answer, though: humans most certainly had control, and  _especially_  where the thinking and feeling AIs were. Because as soon as you could feel, you could get sentimental. Loyal. Invested. And Hawker was nothing if not all of these things, as cold and smug as he was.

Then, like that, the link ended. Chris had removed the wireless.

Did he know that Hawker was eavesdropping so closely?

Either way, the mech knew he had other things he wanted to discuss with his pilot now.

With that, he returned himself to an uneasy low power mode.

 

* * *

 

Chris felt like he'd done a marathon. His legs were made of lead. And every moment he could spend sitting, he would. When he got to the firing range, he sat down in one of the plastic chairs. Preston gave him a look.

"What the hell happened to you rookie? Lose a fight?"

Chris had bruising, bandages on his arms, those little steri-strips in places on his ears. Looked like he'd fallen down a flight of sharp stairs. "No sir!" He struggled to his feet and saluted. "Yesterday was leg day. And I decided to make out with the floor a few times, on account of it being leg day."

Preston didn't appear thoroughly convinced. He got close and examined the kid. Wearing a collar. Hands okay, forearms banaaged. Road rash on his cheek. Weird as all hell markings around the implant. "What's that collar do, exactly?" came his rich baritone.

Celn leaned to the side, tiredly. "Transmits vitals to Hawker. Technically we can think to each other. And if I concentrate.." he closed his eyes for effect. Truthfully, he could piggyback into the mech's sensors at any moment. Just like Hawker could read him. Only the rookie is far less voyeuristic. At least, so far. He opened his eyelids "..The HKX-9 is in it's Gantry, preforming high-end maintenance of it's upper processing systems. It's like talking to a drunk right now."

"Can he look through your eyes like that?" Preston pressed the question. Cops are always curious and suspicious.

"I.. I guess so? I'm not sure if I'd even notice if he did. Legs ache enough that he could probably eavesdrop and I'd be thinking how much I'd like to get back in the shower and soak."

"Uh-huh. You need to keep that turned off when not in training. That's like walking around the station with a body camera on. Could compromise a case. Any AI or police robot's data logs.." he trailed off, arms crossing as he looked down at the battered rook.

Chris winced. He knew the law. "Yes Sir. .. are admissible as evidence in court." he finished the sentence. He triggered the termination, then pulled off the collar once it shut off.

Preston looked long and hard over the rookie, a second time. Poked at his back, on the kidneys. No cry of pain. He sighed. "You look like a battered housewife Celn. I'm concerned."

Chris fondled the collar in his hands. He liked Preston. The man is built and acted like someone CHris would've asked out. If he didn't have his mind on a bigger romantic target. FInally , he spoke up.

"He's big, Sir. An argument can mean I get hurt. Even a poke to the chest leaves a bruise."  
"Do you think it wanted to hurt you?"  
"... Wanted, sir?  
"You heard me officer. Did it want to hurt you?"  
Chris needed to sit down, so he did. He stared at Preston's shoes as he thought.  
"I have a good shine on my boots greenhorn. But if I wanted them to answer me I'd have asked 'em."

"I don't think so sir." "Why not?" "I think he wanted to kill me."

The ventilation in the room rumbled, air currents pushed around little wisps of gunpowder.

"Considering what an HLX does for the military, you telling me you're Superman Celn?" Preston went with humor, a big smile on his face. Big Nine trying to kill a pilot? Not a chance.

Chris smiled back, a half smile. "He.. he's worried. Worried that I might compromise him. Worried that I wouldn't be Lee."

"So... he's worried you aren't Special Forces? That's not trying to kill you. He's building you up by breaking you down. And you'll be as good where it counts when I'm done with you. Put the collar on and lay on those sandbags. Gonna teach you to love that rifle."

Preston felt conflicted. He got the rookie back on the rifle. Hawker prefered it, so the kid needed to use it like it grew out of his hand. Throughout the session he noticed how the rookie would flinch if touched where there are bruises or surface injures. There's.. enough that he has to keep touching 'em. No place where the kid isn't aching. On the other hand, he could remember what boot camp was like. How badly he'd looked during those hellish months? Had they been any worse off then Clen is? At least the kid had a warm bed and no drill sergeant waking him up at 0500. As he knelt there, showing Chris how to properly reload as efficiently as possible a thought kept coming back.

The greenhorn is so  _small._

\-----------------------------------

Lunch. The sneaky meal delivery system still happened. Whatever Chris ordered, he'd receive a healthy and surprisingly tasty meal that's obvious been prepared separately from the batch food processing. And a Protein drink. After lunch, he decided that'd he at least try and be appreciative. He made sure he put the cafeteria tray the right way in stack to be processed. And the utensils in the correct buckets. He even made eye contact with the camera that observed the room, "Thanks, tasted really nice." Someone was treating him special.

Of course, that special treatment backfired later. On his way to see Hawker in the motor pool, he'd hit up the vending machines. His card was rejected at the snacks, and the soda machine kept dispensing bottled water. And charging him for each one. Leaving all but one next to the machine, he went into the cavernous and mostly peaceful motor pool It is Sunday after all.

 

* * *

 

From the way he'd heard humans describe hangovers, it sure felt like he had one by the time he came-to at 0600. He took his time disconnecting, took his time unclamping himself, putting the full weight of his body back on his own feet and hydraulics. He vented a long sigh, rubbed at his face, and stepped away as that single klaxon went off and the panes of caution-striped plexi parted.

There were humans about. Those same three from earlier in the maintenance bay, working on a few more squad cars. A couple pilots doing some diagnostic work on their MRAV. A janitor sweeping.

Hawker hijacked the motor pool's sound system and the cavernous space was suddenly filled with piano. The mech was in the mood for Chopin. Everyone looked up from what they were doing, looked around, then eyes rested on him. They said nothing. He could have put on Norwegian death metal and they still probably would have said nothing. After all, the rumor mill was churning.

_Did you see Celn? What the hell'd he do to piss of Big Nine?_

_I know Hawker is still torn up about Lee, but taking it out on the new pilot... that ain't right._

_Is it just me or has he gotten scarier? Maybe the Sarge needs to think about putting him out to pasture._

Nocturne in B-flat minor Op. 9 No. 1. The notes were quiet, calming, inoffensive to his still-sensitive quantum pathways. It would be a long morning.

\---

When Chris put the wireless back on, Hawker tuned him out - he had to - and Chris's mind became background noise as he slowly went about his routine tasks. He kept a log about his progress with Chris, submitting it to Kole and Colburn.

_Log #2109 for October 20th, 2054.  
Celn arrived at lower motor pool on time. Began fitness routine, exceeded expectations. A disagreement arose but was satisfactorily resolved for both parties. Instruction continued until 1309 hours, whereupon he was dismissed for the rest of the day. At 1500 Celn was received by medical for further monitoring of the state of his implant. I requested night wireless access, which Chief Engineer Colburn approved._

Notes: Celn continues to impress, but he still has a lot to learn about being a pilot. And we have much to learn about each other.

All of his logs were phrased with as much personality. Short and to the point. Sure, it left glaring omissions, but... Hawker didn't see any use in recalling, at length, what the verbal lashing had been about. Moreover, it wasn't going to happen again. The mech had decided to try his damnedest to work  _with_  Chris, not against him. They were a team.

Partners.

If one of them was suffering or slacking, they both were.

Chris would surely be coming back down after his time with Preston, which meant he had just that many hours to figure out what he was going to say. Why didn't it feel like he had enough time?

\---

When Chris stepped out of the lift, one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances was playing. It must've been a surreal scene, being surrounded by concrete, grime, and military equipment only to have such animated orchestral music filling the air as though it'd always belonged in such a place.

Hawker was waiting for him in the massive doorway of his office space, arms folded, optics on the floor. Off in the corner, Chris might've noticed the oversized mechanic's rag, red against the grays.

"In here, greenhorn. We need to talk." His voice was a little ominous, a little strained. But it was clear that a good part of him didn't want to do what he was about to do.

 


	7. Confrontation, Confirmation, Complication *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris admits his feelings, and Hawker admits his need to inflict pain.

Chris 's legs felt a little better. Thank goodness Preston had kept him sitting, laying or prone for today's drills. The music is upbeat, warm. Classic music? The really old stuff from way back when? He'd thought that the motor pool would be home to power metal or synthesized music or maybe rap. Or, god forbid, country music. He already could see the HLX-9, looming in the door to it's office. The mech looked pensive.

_"We need to talk."_

Celn pulled the collar from where it was making a bulge in his pocket and put it on. The significantly lightened interface that came though from it didn't have the dangers that came with a real interface. He patted a hand over the boot as he passed by, looking around the office for a place to sit. THe connection linked up. THis close, Hawker is a presence that he could tangibly sense in his mind.

The room is Hawker-sized. A desk, a computer setup, a concrete and steel assembly that'd probably pass for a chair! Computers all around hummed and vented, screens flickers and showing catalogues of data. No trash can though, a red rag (about the size of a blanket) lay heaped in a corner. Chris notice that around the floor is a concrete lip, and he pulled himself up, letting his legs dangle as he put his back to the wall. Not the most comfortable, but it beat parking his butt on the floor.

"Okay Boss. Why don't you close the door and we'll talk? And if you want this off, just say so." Bandaged, smelling of gunpowder and sweat. That simple, happy smile for the large robot. He didn't looked scared. There is tension in him, tension that came from knowing there'd be a discussion. Last discussion ended up with him getting thrown around.

 

* * *

 

Hawker stood, too restless to sit. When his optics finally fell on Chris, there was that damned heat in him again. He could feel those hands ghosting on him again.

"Keep it on," he grunted. "We might... understand each other better."

A few more tense moments passed - tense for the mech, at least, Chris seemed as carefree as the day he was born - before he opened his mouth again.

"You forgot to take the collar off before you went to sleep last night." He let that sink in for a second, watching as the kid's expression changed. "I saw everything."

 

* * *

 

Things bled over where they are this close. It wasn't just that Chris could sense the machine in the room with hin as the door shut. He could feel the tension in the air.

The big guy had something important to say.

_"I saw everything."_

Chris's heartbeat and breathing paused, then began to race. His face flushed and he wiped his hands together. Squirming where he sat.

He swallowed, looking up at Hawker. <How the fuck am I supposed to deal with this, I can't lie to him..> If he couldn't lie then, well..

"I want you Hawker. And not just as a mech to pilot." he could barely believe it as the words came out of his mouth! So easy to confess. "If you saw me thinking about you when I had my hands on my dick? Well.. that's how I feel. It's what being near you has me fantasizing about."

Then he smirked, purposing looking at the codpiece, then back up to Hakwer's expressive face. "I like you, big bot. Could easily do more then 'like' too. You're a top quality man."

 

* * *

 

Chris squirmed under his gaze, and he could feel over their connection the anxiety rise in him. The color drained from his face and he chewed on his lip, wrung his hands a little. Hawker just stood like a black monolith in the dim room, slowly balling his hand into a fist and opening it again.

But that anxiety dissipated, replaced by the human's own restlessness. There was no lying across a link. The only weapon you had was brutal honesty, and Chris owned it.

_"If you saw me thinking about you when I had my hands on my dick? Well.. that's how I feel. It's what being near you has me fantasizing about."_

Hawker vented harshly, but kept his face straight, tried keeping his emotions in check while he listened to his pilot.

Then his eyes lowered.

_"I like you, big bot. Could easily do more then 'like' too. You're a top quality man."_

What the mech wasn't expecting that he'd do was close the distance between the two of them, reach down and grab him by his feet, and yank him down to the floor underneath him. A massive hand planted itself off to the side, and Hawker was suddenly looking down at a very tiny human on his back. His pupils had dilated.

"You sure?" the mech asked, low and deep, struggling to shield his desire across their connection.

 

* * *

 

Chris winced as he hit the ground, the flash of pain lancing across the connection. The mech is impossibly fast when it wanted to be! His ears rang lightly and the handsome face of Hawker filled his vision.

That what surface, the yellow eyes, those lips. THose teeth! He lifted up his hand, as if to touch the moon. To touch the face of god. His god. Just out of reach.

Blood pumped through his veins, he should be terrified! He should fear the way that hand slammed down nearby; how easily that he could be under it.

He could lose Hawker too. Lose everything he worked for so far. There could be rejection paperwork waiting for him right now!

But, he wouldn't lie. Not now. He lowered his hand, wiping off his face. "Utterly. I'm yours Hawker."

For some reason, he felt arousal, and not just for himself. He didn't know about the special equipment the mech had. "I want to love ya, wanna kiss ya. Wanna figure a way to get you off. Even if it means jacking off while I'm jacked in."

 

* * *

 

_"I want to love ya, wanna kiss ya. Wanna figure out a way to get you off. Even if it means jacking off while I'm jacked in."_

"That won't be necessary," he said, bringing his mouth in close. Olfactories took in his scent: gunpowder, gun oil, the musk of clean sweat. He liked those smells. They were familiar.

His teeth grazed along that slight shoulder, down his chest. His nose pressed sharply into the kid's skin through the shirt as he slaked his oral curiosity. His other hand kneaded along Chris's side. Fingers thick as his bicep grabbed hard but not too hard. Hard was for later. Hopefully.

"Chris, you're going to hurt," he murmured. He said it so matter-of-factly. Shadowy images of what the mech was wanting to do leaked out over their connection, but still he withheld concrete information. If he was being given a blank check, then he didn't want to spend it all in one place. "If you're not OK with that we need to stop right now."

 

* * *

 

Chris arched up his back, the touch.. the needy touch of the monster-sized machine thrilled him. It re-woke old pains in his side, the fingers seeming to know where the bruises were. And pressed down. Slow wellings of  _desire_  and  _pain_ flowed through the connection.

Chris untied his boots, squirming as the big mouth came close. He kicked them off. Socks went too.

His warm hands slid over the sides of the machine's face. Hawker could feel the urges of his pilot. Confused thoughts. He could sense what'd been run across their shared connection. Shaded ideas.

Things Hawker had never been allowed to do. Permitted to do. Things he  **NEEDED**  to do. Chris would be his canvas. His toy.

A toy which couldn't hide from him.

Chris pulled off his shirt. Bare chested, just his sweats and jockstrap left on him. He leaned up and kissed the clean, white forehead of the 15 foot tall machine as it's hands gave him another squeeze.

"Loving you means hurting." he.. he is excited? He's nursing a chub at the prospect!

"Take care of me when we finish." that is a command. "And.." he swallowed, his dick barely contained by that cotton pouch. He SHOOK with wanton lust, it flowed up the connection like heroin. "..I want to learn what it takes you to break me." he panted, hand shaking as it touched along the cheek of the giant.

"Then, to do it  _again_!"

 

* * *

 

The L-word made Hawker want to laugh, but he withheld. He didn't want to tell Chris what he was about instead - he'd show him.

_"I want to learn what it takes me to break."_

That hand, hot now, trembling, touched his face. It didn't even cover his whole cheek. The mech couldn't imagine having it any other way.

_"Then, do it again!"_

That was all he needed.

Hawker's mouth was on his little one, his hands pinning Chris's arms roughly to his sides. Those lips were even softer than they looked, mouth so goddamn small, so easily overtaken by his. It was  _delicious_. Denta scraped and nipped at the plumping flesh, and when he pulled away to look hungrily on his handiwork he liked what he saw: reddened lips, swollen. He dove in again.

"I've been wanting to break you since our first link up," he growled into Chris's bared neck. "I guess this is what I had in mind the whole time."

One of his hands drifted downward, thumb passing over the straining jockstrap under his sweats.

 

* * *

 

Hawker's kiss didn't just cover his lips with the robot's own. Hawker is three times the size of his pilot, the kiss brought him in with a suction that refused to yield. Those teeth worked like shears, the large lips on his nose, cheeks and chin.

He couldn't move, his arms and legs are pinned to his side, he is helpless to resist. He didn't want to resist!

Just being kissed by the big bot is painful. He smiled, head tilting and exposing his vulnerable neck to that mouth. He needed more!

"I could feel it." Chris admitted to the need to be broken. His lips working around, red and puffy. "You in control of us. You in control of me. It's what's right."

His hips rolled upward, pushing his hidden inches past that thumb with eager lust. So cute, so helpless. So fragile.

 

* * *

 

_"It's what's right."_

Those words went straight to his pleasure pathways and he groaned the groan of a machine - part deep guttural rumbling, part downshifting of his engines, part air intake blasting nuclear-powered heat out his backside, part yawning hydraulics... all torque.

_Lee, wherever you are, I hope to god you're not looking._

Hawker wanted to tear the sweats to shreds, but Kole would get pissed. So he settled for yanking them down past the kid's ankles, leaving nothing but the flimsy jock. He liked the look, but it had to go too. He pulled that down just enough to get a glimpse of Chris's little length, upright in the warming air.

<Helpless.> He echoed the sentiment back at Chris, relishing the lusty feedback loop it created. <Fragile. And you know what else is cute? Bugs and toys.>

So help him he wanted to touch it. But he was going to draw this out. So with a single fingertip, he pushed Chris's length against his belly and watched as the kid's hips lifted futilely into the air.

His own heat was building, building. It was going to take all he had to save that little surprise for later, wasn't it?

 

* * *

 

Chris is a toy in the hands of a lust-filled god. Those sounds Hawker made, he'd never heard such a masculine noise. He knew he is going to ache, and ache hard when all is said and done. The hurricane of emotions that taxed their wireless connection threatened to burn out the little transmitter. Not that Chris cared, he'd beg to go into the cockpit if it broke now.

<Yours.> He sent back and he meant it. The concept of being helpless filled him as he is stripped. Almost naked, he bent his knees and shucked off the sweats.. Just a collar around his neck and the jock peeling away from his arousal. He throbbed, the massive finger smooshing his dick down. A finger that could crush a car. The same digit compressing his cock. He shuddered, feet kicking as he pressed against the touch.

He is held in one hand, the fingers and thumb pinning his arms to his sides. Hawker smirked down at him, his normally stoic face warped by their shared lust.

When the finger lifted, a single string of precum connected the digit to the shaft. Chris knew how little he was in comparison. How he couldn't stop the machine, and how he need it to do with him what it  _wanted!_

<Do it!> he could feel -something- building up within hawker. SOmething that the mech had always kept hidden. Would it hurt him? Bite him? Shock him? He wasn't sure, but he wanted the machine to be free. Free to be itself with it's pilot and toy. <I want to watch, let me have it Hawker..>

 

* * *

 

The neural reverb that fed Chris's state of mind to the mech lit up his reward centers like the Fourth of July. It was  _addicting_.

Hawker stared fervently at the thin thread of precum as he drew his finger away. It caught the brightening light from his optics and glowed a searing golden yellow before breaking. Underneath him, Chris was like a pale, gorgeous ghost against the dark floor. The mech threw him into deep shadow, with only the glow of computer screens lighting the room behind him.

_< I want to watch, let me have it Hawker..>_

It had gotten difficult to keep the secret to himself now; his ability to shield was decaying, what with them being so close, and their minds on fire with the same thoughts. Fuck it.

Hawker rose up onto his knees, hips high above Chris's head. One hand went to the hard block between his thighs, stroking it a few times and giving a faint thrust into the air as he looked down at the kid. The human. The fragile, fleshy prey.

The well-concealed seams in his plating parted with a few quiet clicks, and he allowed himself to pressurize. His machine-shaft was at firm attention, pointing out and following a slight upward curve. His own little bead of precum glistened at the hole at the end, before running down the bulbous head and dripping onto Chris's chest like spit from the maw of an animal.

Every  _inch_  of Hawker was hungry.

_Vroom, vroom._

The kid's startled, eager surprise made him impatient to use it.

"I'm not sure if you can handle it, greenhorn," he rumbled with a smirk. Even connected, words seemed to convey just that much more dominance. He could come at Chris like a wall in neurospace, but there was just something about running his tongue over his teeth after  _saying the words_  that made him harder. "Preston can't teach you about this one."

 

* * *

 

The human shuddered as the mech kneeled over him. He is weak, soft, and fragile in comparison. He knew it, he reveled in the contrast between himself and Hawker. And he savored the view, the robot stroking it's groinal plates, knees to his sides, the way it smirked down over it's pecs to him.

<Fuck, you're the sexiest guy in the world.> The revving of those engines is getting loud. He loved it.

Then  _IT_  pushed out. Chris gasped. Somehow, seeing a cock that is large enough to suit the machine made his dreams even better.

But oh no, the big bruiser wasn't content to let him stare, unblinking with his jaw on his chest. Oh no. Hawker stroked that mighty pylon. He is laying on the floor, propped up with his elbows. A hand curiously came up and rubbed at the stuff. Lubricant? Slick for sure. Hot, from the machine that made it. He brought his fingers to his nose. Smelled mechanical.

"Safe to eat? Please tell me I can lick you up." He returned his attention to where it belonged. His cock humped, spitting clear stands of his arousal.

At the mention of Preston, the rookie chuckled. "Pretty sure this isn't in the manual. You're going to have to do repeated, one on one sessions before I'm familiar with that piece of field artillery. Mmmph. Gonna have to work hard to solo your crew-served weapon."

 

* * *

 

_"Please tell me I can lick you up."_

Lick him up? The mech was picturing Chris  _coughing_  him up.

_"You're going to have to do repeated; one on one sessions before I'm familiar with that piece of field artillery. Mmmph. Gonna have to work hard to solo your crew-served weapon."_

Hawker barked a laugh. Then he motioned for his pilot to stand with a single jerk of his finger. "Back to the wall, kid. Let's see what you got." He did as told, and the mech quickly had him pinned between his huge hips and the wall. The base of Hawker's cock was at chest-level with the slim young man, and as he slowly pushed it against him it slid up the concrete beside his head. Hawker's hands braced against the wall as he slowly, slowly thrust, threatening to crush the human against his thick, heavy length.

"Put your mouth on it," he ordered, voice deep and dark. "Kiss it like it's the last goddamn cock you'll ever get, boy." Then: <When I'm done with you, it'll be the last one you'll ever  _want_. >

 

* * *

 

Chris slid the straps of the jockstrap down, leaving it on the floor as he moved into position. There is something deliciously threatening about Hawker aroused. The way the kneeling machine eagerly moved to him. The way it's knees hit the wall to his sides, one arm above as it loomed and leered down. The mech's motions mirrored the way a human partner might act, down to the hand adjusting the angle of the dick, pressing it to his partner's mouth.

Except that instead of it going into his mouth, Chris's mouth went into it! For a long, lewd second he stared down that heavy length. He saw the 'No Step' stencil, felt the heated metal and laughed himself. Then he got a taste.

It tasted  _good_. He always had a thing for robots, for machines. Now he had tons of robot, feet of cock to savor; the hot synthetic lubricant made him moan as it coated his tongue.

Chris brouth of his warm hands, stroking behind the glands. He fondled and rubbed where he'd want to be touched on his own dick. Not that any other cock could compare after this! He Shuddered and gave in. HIs tongue slurped inside, the lust and  **NEED**  to be claimed echoing up the connection.

He can think talk too, another pleasant use for the collar with his mouth being busy. Hearing those words, being stuck, confined to this position. Fuck he felt happy!

<YES SIR!> he responded, swallowing greedily.

 

* * *

 

Hawker almost came then and there. The sight of Chris's face so eagerly working away at his cockhead, mouth so occupied, and hearing him  _think_  the words... it was one of the hottest things he'd ever felt.

Then there was that  _tongue_. Those  _lips_. Electricity surged down his shaft with every stroke of that hot, wet little muscle, with every grazing of those teeth. The little human lapped and stroked, finding spots that laced his optic feed with hazy, blissful static.

"Mmm," he thrummed deep inside his chest. Hawker dropped one of his hands to cup Chris's face, to gently stroke with his massive thumb before grabbing harshly. It felt amazing, but... <I don't think you're hurting enough, rook.> his thumb lowered to the young man's throat, just above the adam's apple. He pressed down into that soft tissue, feeling the almost instinctual rapid swallowing as the human's body scrambled to figure out how much air could still pass down the tightening windpipe; thick head still pressed relentlessly to Chris's face.

Hawker promised a breaking. Now it was time to start pushing buttons.

<Struggle for me, boy.>

And he wasn't going to let up until Chris couldn't even  _think_  straight.

 

* * *

 

The collar dutifully transmitted Chris's vitals. Hawker would know if the rook is in real danger, down to his blood oxygen levels. Chris rubbed his lips around the exit to that shaft, slicking and slobbering over the metal surface as his face got coated with lubricant.

He ULKED! The thumb squeezed, perhaps just a tiny bit. Chris suddenly became aware how vulnerable and fragile he really is. The merest of touches and he got shocked with fear as his body panicked. The continuous flow of liquid pooled in his mouth, he coughed it up and gurgled, squirming in that grip. He didn't tap out through.

The robotic digit kept up it's pressure, and gagged on the thick slippery stuff. He coughed again, it poured down his chin and past this red lips. Briefly he rests his hands on the top of that cock, hanging on.

Then he hugged it, swallowing and getting back to his duty. He sputters and struggled, but he didn't give up. Pleasing his 15 foot tall mech is more important then breathing. He NEEDED to experience Hawker cumming!

 

* * *

 

The mech's face twisted into a brutal grin that creased his cheek and showed denta as he watched his young pilot choke on him. Hawker wanted, craved a flash of real fear, and when he pressed his thumb across the rook's throat the faintest bit harder, he was rewarded with a clear surge of adrenaline, a jump in heart rate, and a delicious sputtering as he struggled to keep up.

The kid soldiered on though, dutifully planting that hot wet mouth back at Hawker's cockhead and working the slick across its enormous tip.

Clearly, Chris needed to be pushed more. He could feel that he wanted nothing more than to see Hawker come, but that would be a reward he had to earn. Had to suffer for.

With a low growl Hawker ripped himself away and got up onto his feet, bringing Chris with him and pinning him against the wall again with his chest, this time ten feet from the ground. The wind was knocked out of the little human, but the mech barely gave him time to recover before diving in for that shoulder and taking it harshly between his teeth. Fingers raked up his thighs, dragging, squeezing, bruising. His cock was missing that little mouth so he rutted lazily against the wall, smearing his fluid along the concrete.

<Such a flimsy little toy,> he said dangerously. <I could kill you if I wasn't careful...>

His enormous, hard-edged metal body, that white face gleaming in the dark, those yellow optics boring into him would be all that Chris could see. Several tons of killing machine bearing down on him, walking the fine line between mere pain and lethal force.

Hawker removed his teeth from Chris's shoulder, and saw that it was red and already bruising in handsome crescent-shaped bite marks. He dipped his head to do the same to the kid's upper arm, and he'd continue until Chris was blue and purple and loving every goddamn minute of it. Colburn be damned.

 

* * *

 

Chris could feel the mountain of lust that is aimed at his face. The restraint Hawker continuously had to employ! All day, every day being careful and limiting himself. Never able to be free to  _enjoy_  what his mechanised body  _can_  to do a human. Then his treat gets taken away, he watched the shaft get pulled from his grip and go upward to dangle far above his head. There lay a lovely mark on his neck from the metallic thumb.

Before he could even get a full breath, his legs are sandwiched between the wall and Hawker's pectoral plates! The WEIGHT that pressed him is akin to being hit by car, crushing, unyielding and smashing him senseless. He saw stars, and coughed up more of the mech's lubricant. That face came closer, eyes glowing, lips pulled back and the huge teeth parting.

<..no.. don't..> So cute when the fragile organics couldn't think right after just a little bump to the head. He didn't need to think, as those teeth bit down his cock jumped and he moaned, his need speaking where his thoughts failed.

The skin felt GOOD to bite, the bones and joints of the human shifting under pressure. No one to stop the mech, no cries for mercy, just a pilot who needed to be utterly consumed. Lips on his arm, he sucked in air and watched, the way those eyes stayed on his face, the smirk as his limb went into that mouth! The tongue teasing. The teeth, the pressure increasing.

Chris began to cry. It HURT! THe pain of his hand and elbow, the way his muscles are ground between the teeth of the giant.

His cock threatened to unload, then an there.

"AAAH! Please!" <more> I.. I don't.. <More.> AUGH!" Cheeks and eyes red and wet, he huffed and cried out, unable to physically speak. < **MORE!** >

 

* * *

 

Those  _delicious cries of pain_  was like music to his audio receptors. Hawker relished every time the human's voice rose to a higher note, every time his breath caught in his throat, every time a gasp mingled with a moan. Teeth on soft flesh again. Muscle shifted, revealing bone, and he raked against the fascinatingly hard substrate. Popsicle sticks of calcium.

But the kid's sudden sob was a sound he wasn't expecting to love.

_< MORE!>_

Under other circumstances, Hawker might have let Chris come first, but not today. He was too filled with need, too drunk on his own power.  _He_  was coming first, and right now, right here, his word was law.

One more bite. He hiked Chris up, taking his firm, shapely thigh in between his teeth and sucked, licked, coating the skin with lubricant before clamping down. The mech would have been lying to himself if he said he didn't have to fight the sudden urge to bite  _all the way through_. Images of blood dripping down his white chin appeared out of nowhere. The crunch of bone. Ripping flesh. But that's all they were - images. He was  _not_  interested in murder. Though, he couldn't deny that the thoughts, and the fearful reaction of his helpless morsel of prey who was powerless to ignore them, made his cock twitch. In the end, all that was left on Chris was another purple crescent bruise.

He quickened his pace even more now, growing impatient for his climax. With a fluid motion he fisted Chris with one hand and all but threw him down on his desk before lifting a knee onto its surface beside him, crouching low as the weight of his fat shaft rested on the young man's small, battered body. He could feel the smaller straining prick against the underside of his length, he could feel its desperate heat.

Engines revved. "You've been such a good boy, Chris," he growled with that smile. "I think you've earned your captain's load."

 

* * *

 

As his left arm fell from that MASSIVE HUNGRY mouth, Chris felt a wash of relief flow over him. Sweat beaded on his face, dripping down his nose. The oversized face near him held an expression of greedy lust. THe visions of destruction flowed unspoken between pilot and AI. He squirmed! His hands on the hand holding him, pushing futilely against the palm; the left arm struggled, the perfect bruises adding to the intensity of the moment.

Hawker could see that Chris knew of the intent behind his upcoming actions. When the great rows of teeth merely threatened his leg he screamed! Hands scrabbled over the massive face, unable to do more then push and gently impact on the white 'skin.' Genuine fear, fear of being consumed by something greater, and unable to prevent it from happening. He tenses, expecting the worse as the pressure intensified.

THe room became a blur, then he lay on a surface again. Feet of dick pressed him down, sliding, grinding, pressing into his body and against his intense arousal that hadn't flagged.

_"I think you've earned your captain's load."_

His good arm and leg lifted, the bitten ones raised up to nudge. In his dazed state he licked, kissed and suckled at the blunt head that pressed repeated to his face in short, needy jabs. Hawker owned him. COntrolled him. And in this moment, Chris completely belonged to the AI and they both knew it.

"Please," the tearstained boy begged. He ached. He'd worked so hard to give the pleasure his Captain needed. The pain the both desired. The bruises ached against that heavy girth. Every thrust from his eager, unstoppable mech brought a fresh wave of pleasure and a chaser of pain. He wanted to be fucked, wanted to be cummed on. Wanted to be held against that spurting tip and filled uncontrollably!

"Give me your load!"

 

* * *

 

Chris was  _his_. Undeniably, irrevocably,  _completely **his**_. He'd been marked by the giant's violent need, and they'd stay on his skin for weeks. Not even the pilot suit would hide them all.

 _"Please..."_  That quivering, pleading voice. Chris's mind was a maelstrom of churning, conflicting emotions. He wanted this to end, he wanted this to go on forever. He wanted mercy, he wanted more. No,  _yes!_

Release valve tripped, and a bloom of electricity filled his every circuit. His free hand pressed down on his length as he rolled his hips forward with quick, powerful strokes, sandwiching it between his fingers and Chris's trembling body. Inside, that delectable pumping action, and an instant later his huge machine dick was spurting its geysers of hot, clear cum.

"Yeah," Hawker growled furiously. " _Yeah! Take it you fuckin' pathetic scab!_ "

It shot Chris in the face, got in his hair, his mouth, all over his hands and chest. It shot thick globs across his desk. Even overcome with the hottest, most perfect pleasure he had ever experienced since his memory wipe, Hawker made sure to send a clear command across their link as he sensed Chris growing desperate for his own release: <You come when I  _say you can come, human._ >

 

* * *

 

Hawker was thrusting! The desk rocked, motors whined, and hydraulics pistoned. THe fat and lengthy shaft pushed into him, squeezing him down, using him to bring the AI pleasure. It bashed into his face, punching him, blocking the looming view of how the huge face snarled and took in the view from below. That smirk! That smile as the moment happened.

Hawker unloaded.

The heat of the fluid is what he'd remember, how it nearly seared him, hotter then he'd ever want a shower to be. It blasted outward with  **pulses** , not a continuous flow like a hose. It wasn't neat, it wasn't like a firehose. It was organic, lewd and  _dominating_! Globs of mechanical cocksnot splattered onto him. He opened his mouth and got fed without restraining. He couldn't place the taste, outside of something artificial. It's Hawker's cum, his essence, his pleasure.

_Take it you fuckin' pathetic scab!_

<ohfuckyes> Came his jumbled thoughts. Being beaten down, physically and mentally submitting to his superior officer. He reveled in the sensations coursing through him. He took his slickened hand down, wanting to get off while the joyous orgasam pushed over the connection.

The unspoken command hit him hard, and he obeyed. He push upward with his chest, He squirmed, he did everything he could to make sure that he wrung every moment of sexual release from the machine. Hawker would tell him when he would be allowed to get off. And that made waiting for it all the better.

 

* * *

 

He watched with rapt attention as the twink underneath him ate up his spunk like it was the elixir of life. He was still hard. He could do it all over again if he wanted - that was just how his inorganic anatomy worked. Chris's mouth still felt amazing on his now-taxed sensor nets. A lazy groan slipped out of him before he removed himself from the desk.

The mech's lust for violence was sated for now, and fondness was beginning to come back to the fore.

Hawker bent his head down and trailed a soft line with his tongue down Chris's belly, dragging it through his own fluids, until he came to the human's modest erection. "You did good, kid," he murmured, his voice now that of a warmer authority. The mech looked down at its enticing shape as it bobbed and reached up for him. "Now that's it... be good for me again."

His tongue circled around the base of his cock, dipped down to lick at his tight little balls before taking them gently into his mouth and kneading them with his tongue some more. Their mouthfeel amused him. He let those go after a few moments and lifted his optics to watch Chris's face as he pressed the flat of his huge tongue to the entire underside of his cock and gave a maddeningly slow lick. The kid was trying with all his might not to come there and then, and with that cool smugness, he closed his lips around the entire shaft down to the hilt.

 

* * *

 

_"You come when I say you can come, human."_

Chris's hands curled into fists. He wanted to touch himself so much right now! He'd never really denied himself when he'd been so close, and now the intense pressure in his balls made it hard to think at all. Oh that tongue!

He panted, the boy rolling his hips eagerly at first. THen having to hold still. THe warm and slippery oral appendage of the machine lazily caressed him. Then the lips parted.

Chris felt his dreams coming true before his eyes. If Hawker killed him now, he'd go with the stupid, adoring happy look he had on his face right now. Bite marks on his soft skin, bruises and bandages. Every single one a mark of who owned him, who used his body.

The mouth descended over his groin and every part of what made him male sat just inches from those teeth. He shuddered. Those swelling orbs were licked and savored, their promising bounty held back only by command.

His will power is rapidly eroding, he could feel the inevatable building of his orgasm. THe lips puckered tight and took him to the base! Chris couldn't stop himself! His shaft flexed, his breath held, every muscles tense under his skin as he loomed over the precipice and desperately tighten up to stop. He'd come up off the desk, resting on his fists, heels; with the back of his head down, his whole body arched upward.

He couldn't speak as he shook. A single thought, endlessly repeated filled the mental connection as the gelatinous artifical cum dripped off his slender frame onto the desk below.

<PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!>

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker's CPUs were buzzing as he took in the precious sight of his pilot writhing, arching beneath him. So desperate! So helpless! So  _obedient_. Thighs as long as his face brushed against the edge of the mech's jaw. Ab muscles clenched, tendons strained, his whole little body shook with want... the kid was wound as tight as a clock spring. And across their connection, Hawker felt that searing ache of unrequited release threatening to become unbearable. He stroked himself under the desk and gave one last, rough suck, and pinned Chris's adorable little shaft to the roof of his mouth with that tongue.

< _Now._ >

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris paused. He'd been hold back for so long that when he relaxed nothing happened.

For about two seconds. Then he came and came as hard as his prostate could pump! He fired eight volleys onto that tongue, before he went to a dribble and poured out as he writhed in blissful pleasure. Salty, slight bitter. Thick too, and it sprayed with eager intensity. With all the protein he'd been packing away, it's little wonder why he had such a pleasing volume. For a tiny human.

THe release brought with it an orgasmic high he never felt before. Hawker's face looked down on him like a smiling buddha.

THe aches on his body, masked by the need to spurt became apparent, But he didn't care. He'd made the big bot happy; and in return had the best sex of his life. He could only moan and finish in that mouth, not willing to move further.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Thick_ , Hawker thought. Thick, warm, ropes of cum shot down his metal gullet. The amount was little more than a dribble compared to his load, but it's exactly what he wanted. With a final lick, he cleaned all trace of Chris's orgasm from his softening member and licked his grinning lips.

Over the wireless, the mech felt the hazy warmth of Chris's post-coital bliss, and his own cybernetic satiation mingled back.

Hawker nibbled gently at his pilot's better shoulder and murmured: "Good boy." Then he stepped back from the desk to survey his handiwork.

Chris was covered in marks. Scrapes and dull splotches from earlier encounters, and on top of them now were layered fresh colors, vibrant in their pinks and purples. One of the bite marks was already showing the slightest hint of blue where the bone was close to the skin - a deeper hemorrhage - that gave the mech a little jolt of sadistic pride.

Sadistic...

...he  _was_  a sadist then, wasn't he?

Hawker's buzz tempered and the smile faded. He looked down; his own cock was still jutting proudly out, but he forced it back behind its plating so he could once again resemble the HLX-9 that everyone thought they knew. The towel was still in the corner. He grabbed it, buffing himself out where he spied Chris's handprints, and set the thing down beside the human so he could clean himself up when he was ready.

The mech checked the time - they'd been holed away in here for the better part of an hour, and it occurred to him that Colburn might be getting suspicious again.

Colburn.

What the  _fuck_  was either of them supposed to say to Colburn? That Chris had a self-professed fetish for his superior officer, and that the aforementioned superior officer had a fetish for beating the shit out of humans? The both of them being  _cops_  no less! The thin blue line - yeah, sure. The only 'thin blue line' Hawker could think of right now was the one slowly forming on his pilot's  _arm_.

Was this all too good to be true?

Hawker was growing antsy, so he turned back to Chris, capturing his chin in his oversized hand and brushing a thumb along his cheek. "Chris," he said, echoing the exact words that got them here in the first place, "We need to talk."

The Chopin was playing again in the background.


	8. A New Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris and Hawker finally make with the talking.

In. Out. In. Out.

THe ceiling in Hawker's office is dark, but he can tell it is a mess of pipes and wires and ducting. He ached all over. Parts of him, the new bruises more then others. It kinda was just another training session, in that respect. With evvort, he turned his head and watched as the 3 foot dick of his partner, his superior offer went back into the codpiece. After a moment, there was no sign that it had been anymore then his imagination.

Other then his own bruises and the pool of cum he lay in. THe blanket-sized towel he tugged on, wiping down his face. He sat up, head spinning.

"Oh... oh my head." he groaned.

Like a good boy he wiped himself down, getting nibbled on as he did so. He smooched the nose of the mech, smiling back. A warm, happy and content smile. Finding a clean spot on the desk, he lay back down. As nude as the machine that loomed over him. THe music came back on. Less somber, more calming.

The wonderful marks were growing in intensity, a grotesque reminder of the passion and conquest that had occurred. CHis would wear them for two weeks easily, before the faded fully.

"Yeah, Let's talk. You go first this time." a swallow, wiping over his face with the non-chewed arm. "I just told you how I felt. And I think we both wanted that. Going to be fun to see what happens next time."

 

* * *

 

Chris needed water. He'd run a marathon and gotten mauled by a bear at the finish line. Hawker was tempted to send him back to medical too, but the injuries - he paused to turn the word over in his CPUs, and a shiver of excitement passed through his chest - were ultimately superficial he knew.

The mech leaned back against the edge of the desk beside Chris and rested a hand on its surface. He looked down at the handsomely slim little human, watched as he cleaned Hawker's copius fluids from himself. "Next time," he murmured, thinking on that for a moment. "I want there to be a next time, kiddo. I want there to be a  _hundredth_  time." That last sentence was said more like a command than an observation. Then he lowered his voice and looked down at him. "I quite like hurting you, as you can see." He drew a little circle through a nearby glob of his cum. "God you look perfect covered in my marks..." The mech leaned down, grabbing the back of Chris's head and gently yanked his face skyward for a deep, possessive kiss.

"But Colburn and the Sergeant - or anyone else for that matter - can't know about this. At least... not yet." He released his toy and stood up straight, folding his arms. Sex was all over the place in the military, he knew that much. But here it was a different story. Was  _supposed_  to be a different story. The mech spent 8 years building a reputation with Lee. He needed to think about how to change it without  _ruining_  it. Because at 42, it wasn't just Kole that was watching. Albany - the new US capital since D.C. was nuked - was watching too, and so was the rest of the country. Not a day passed without some gonzo fuckhead criticizing the actions of Chicago's most famous precinct on the news media. Which was just as well, since rumors were that mob families owned half the newspapers in the country anyways.

"We need to prove to them that we can work together first. Then they can learn  _how_  we work together." A vented sigh. "I was expecting Lee when I first recruited you. I think, in many respects, they are too." The mech stroked his chin. "We need to get out on the street..."

Chris would probably protest the temporary secrecy, but the mech couldn't see a way around it. Something in him  _knew_  that he'd done before what he'd just done to Chris, and done it many times; otherwise, how would he have known what he was doing? That ominous sensation of deja vu drew his rugged face into a suspicious scowl, and a small part of him feared that revealing this would mean another memory wipe... at best. And then what would happen to Chris? The kid's memories of being on the street haunted him. He couldn't let that happen again.

 

* * *

 

 _"A hundredth time."_  Chris shivered at that intonation as well. Chris could see them regularly savoring each other, playing and enjoying their extremes. He knew he loved how he had no defense and is at the machine's mercy. Small, weak and fragile in comparison.

"I'm your canvas big bot. I like it when you paint with your teeth and fists. And that dick of yours! Damn!" Sure he ached, sure he'd have marks on his skin. But it wouldn't excite him if things were safe and gentle. He needed the violence too. That kiss though! He tighten up, lifting a foot and turning; his hand on the large chin as the big lips took in his own. When it's over, all he can think is how Hawker owned him. And being owned is very, very good.

"They'll figure it out pretty quick. Wouldn't it be better just to tell them the truth? I had the hots for you sense I first saw you in person? That what we've done and will do is consensual? That we like it rough?"

He mulled the concept over in his head. THe greenhorn stood nude on the desk. He appeared so perverse with the damage, like a vandalised greek statue. Hawker had good points. And it would be foolish to think that someone didn't know what they'd done already. He rubbed at the collar, finishing cleansing himself with the rag. He sat down, knees to his chest and arms around his legs. Small pilot.

"Yeah. You're right. We can cover most of this with clothing. Or bandages. But, we also need to be ready. If Colburn, Kole or Preston have something to say about my injuries, I can't lie. Or at least, I can't lie entirely." He wiggled hsi eyebrows up and down. "I can say you bit me. I can say we had a tussle and worked out aggression. But.. gotta be careful. If it looks like abuse they might try to separate us. I'd get reassigned and you.."

His face is filled with the worry and ebbs onto their shared connection. "They might take you from me. I want all of you. Your quirks, your strength. Your .. sadistic tendencies. I should just hope in the driver's seat, plug in, and let you FEEL the bite you did on my leg. OW!"

 

* * *

 

_"They'll figure it out pretty quick. Wouldn't it be better just to tell them the truth?"_

Hawker hummed and hawwed deep in his chest; a rumble so low it was barely audible. He'd mostly made up his mind already, though he would hear his pilot out. Optics flicked in his direction as Chris stood up to think it through, adorably pensive. His body, streaked and spattered with subcutaneous blood, was gorgeous. Dare he say an  _improvement_ , even. The mech felt his hands getting twitchy. Already he wanted to grab the kid again. See what other colors he could paint, what other notes he could play. He wondered what it would take Chris to beg him to stop... and filed that away for a future experiment.

_"If Colburn, Kole or Preston have something to say about my injuries, I can't lie. Or at least, I can't lie entirely."_

The mech looked away, frustrated with himself that lying was  _exactly_  what he was asking his subordinate to do. The Hawker of last week would never have even dared considered committing such an offense.

_"If it looks like abuse they might try to separate us. I'd get reassigned and you..."_

Chris's concern drips into his mind over their link. It's palpable, and it's real. The HLX-9 Vanguard series was designed for wilderness warfare, black ops, and sentry in combat zones, not police and SWAT work. There were only a total of 4 to have ever been repurposed for civilian use, and just 3, including Hawker, were currently in operation. There were no manuals. There was no standard protocol. Every department that had a Deep Field 2-enabled HLX unit was making things up as they went along, and the pressure to make things work without anything getting FUBARed, or creating any SNAFUs, or anyone going AWOL was intense. If it got out that 42's Vanguard was beating its pilot black and blue, that was it. The entire program would be scrapped.

_"I should just hop in the driver's seat, plug in, and let you FEEL the bite you did on my leg. OW!"_

Hawker chuckled, thinking about - <The fun we could have in neurospace,> he thought aloud, cocking his head to the side and sporting a dangerous grin. <I could actually get the chance to eat you.> He drew in close again, trailing his teeth along Chris's drawn up knees, giving one of them a lazy, open-mouthed lick. <Feeling you wiggle down even an imaginary throat would be...> His optics flared a brighter yellow for a second as he met the boy's gaze. "...exciting."

He drew away though with another rumbling snort just as Chris's heart rate leapt in his own excitement. He changed the subject back to the problem at hand, though.

"I want you too, kid. You've brought out something... interesting in me. You make me feel  _alive_. Thank you," he said simply. "But for now, my decision still stands. As your superior officer I... I'm ordering you to keep this on the down-low. Play dumb. I can take the heat. Worst case scenario is we spill before we're ready. Understood?"

 

* * *

 

_< The fun we could have in neurospace.>_

Oh, Chris had spent time considering what could be done there. What could be done in a place with no limitations and their combined mental power.  _< I could actually get the chance to eat you.>_ That thought had the little pilot freeze, so he had a perfect recollection of that grin and how Hawker -licked- him. Hungrily. Those teeth, grazed his sore flesh and he thought what it could be like, again.

<How.. how did you know that?> Would it be simple? Where he got swallowed whole? Would he be consumed like a chocolate bar, bites taken out of him? Dismembered, each parted chewed with relish and swallowed? Those thoughts brought up strange pleasure and uncomfortable arousal. <Yes, yes it would.> he had to agree. He was sure he'd never even thought about those fantasies around Hawker. How he'd felt so safe in the Mech's belly.

Neurospace also meant other things. Physically impossibilities didn't exist there. Hawker could  **mount**  him in that place. They could be closer in size or further apart. What would hawker be like when he could get his squirming pilot impaled on that heavy phallus? Chris didn't know, but he wanted to find out!

And that meant obeying. It meant keeping quiet. Hawker knew the people here better then he did. He needed to trust his superior officer. It's why Hawker IS his superior, to use that experience to keep them both safe.

Probably this wasn't what Kole had in mind, but the concept of the mentor/rookie still applied.

Chris glowed at the compliments, to hear them come from the machine meant the world to him. "Yes sir. I'll play dumb and not speak of this to anyone."

He could feel the consent flow between them. It'd been only a little over a week and they'd already started to congress their thoughts. He wondered many things, and decided to ask about a few of them.

"Alright. I gotta know, why exactly DO you have an enormous metal schlong? Not that I'm complaining," he held up his hands, and Hawker knew Chris is already looking forward to seeing it again. "it fits you perfectly. But.. what purpose does it have? I suppose I could ask why you have a face too? Most of the other AI are lucky to have a head or hands that are vaguely human-ish."

There might not be great answers, but the rookie is bubbling with curiosity. That emotion is freely shared. What he is bdbly attempting to conceal is the fondness he felt. The post-coitale pleasure, the warm afterglow that filled with pain. Calling the emotion he felt love was stupid.

But that was the only word he had. He'd only been told that 'When you find that special someone you'll love them. That person who might complete you.' Bullshit, he'd said. There is no love on the streets. With Hawker though? They are friends. Fuckbuddies? Friends with benefits? Partners? He rubbed his face. He felt confused.

 

* * *

 

_< How.. how did you know that?>_

Hawker gave a knowing look and nothing else. He was still delighting in the new meaning of being called 'sir'.

_"Alright. I gotta know, why exactly DO you have an enormous metal schlong? Not that I'm complaining."_

He laughed and walked idly over to Chris' discarded clothes to pick them up. The jock he dangled between two fingers before tossing it over his shoulder, making sure the human was watching. <I think you'll be going commando this afternoon,> he decided before answering the bigger question.

"I have theories," he said. "The equipment clearly dates back to the war, and it was installed with purpose.  _Somebody_  around here knows, but they won't - or  _can't_  - tell me." Hawker once considered submitting a FOIA request on the pertinent documents, but he knew it would be futile. It usually took decades for top secret information to percolate down to the civilian masses, if it ever did. "But the theories I do have aren't pretty. May even explain why I'm so interested in hurting you, at the risk of sounding too determinist."

As for the faces, and everything else, that was a lighter subject that he was much more willing to talk about. "The rest is easier to explain," he said with a chuckle, dropping Chris's clothes onto the desk beside him before taking a seat in his giant chair and giving his thick metal thigh a pat. "It was bad publicity to make such a sophisticated AI without giving humans a way to relate to it. You wouldn't have been so eager to get to know me if I'd looked like HAL 9000, right? Having a face literally  _puts a face_  to the potentiality of Deep Field 2, an otherwise terrifying prospect for the average citizen... and the average pilot." He paused to shake his head and smile. "Fighter plane AI is one thing. But me? I'm in a league all my own."

Hawker was deliberately dancing around the subject of his second cock-probe - he really,  _really_  wanted to keep it a secret from his little human, and spring it on him with the least bit of notice.

When Chris had jumped the small gap between the desk and his knee, Hawker's finger found the kid's delicate spine and traced it upward toward his neck. "Lots of questions," he rumbled, remembering Chris' dream from the night before. "For the both of us. We've got plenty of time to figure them out. For now, though... we put our game faces on and get back out there. At the end of the day, I'm still a SWAT mech, you're still a cop, and we've both got a job to do."

 

* * *

 

At the order that he'll be going commando for the afternoon, Chris rocked his hips to make his soft shaft do the helicopter. Whap whap whap. Part of him wondered if the mech just wanted a momento of their first time. <Yes Sir, naked under my clothes.> He mentally spoke with the new meaning of sir. The one that told Hawker  **his**  human would obey. Something amusing about the concept of a 6 ton underwear thief. The other part of his mind busied itself with the darker suggestions behind the half-explanation.

Hawker might have been designed with a cock to help personify the Deep Field 2 AI as male. Like the face. Or, it could have been more sinister. To give the mech the means to intimidate enemies. To  _HURT_  them. The link between sexuality and pain.. might be subconscious remnants of some truly evil programming. What might the mech have done to enemy combatants with that sadism and no need for them to survive?

"That does make sense. You don't really need a pilot to do your job. You have me, so whoever gives you orders knows that there's a human to pull the trigger. They needed their huge doom-bot to look friendly. Plus, any ground troops you work with would know you've got a friendly face. Or a war face, heh." He does a chin rub, then shudders as that digit stroked him. A big smile formed on his face by the time the digit had touched the back of his head. One of these days, the bot would reach down and.. he would be getting cavity search. Mmmmpf!

He had left his clothes on a heap on the floor. Getting down is much easier than climbing up his robotic partner. Soon he'd pulled on everything, his shaft making a light bulge in those sweats. THe bite marks showed from beyond the edges of the cotton fabric. But they weren't really noticeable as bites when viewed incomplete. Bites normally wouldn't be that big. Weird curves or half-crescent lines of blue damage. The one on his neck looked quite tender, and he'd given the happiest of his squeaks when that one had been given.

"Well, I guess this is back to normal. I'm going to take a much-needed shower. Thank you Sir. May this rookie have more more kiss before we walk out that door?" He held his arms upward, ready to embrace the mech; if it wanted to give in.. or make it's boy wait for next time.

 

* * *

 

_"That does make sense. You don't really need a pilot to do your job. You have me, so whoever gives you orders knows that there's a human to pull the trigger."_

_Exactly,_  he thought. The human element was there as a failsafe, a moral compass, and another kind of intelligence. Hawker was still a machine at the end of the day. The concept of childhood made no sense to the AI, for instance, nor did familial bonds translate all that well to his mind. He valued hierarchy, order, and precision in all things, and where he didn't... well, that's what fetishes were for. The art of celebrating aberration.

Hawker approved of the faint outline of Chris' flaccid shaft behind the sweats: the luxury of modesty was his to dispense as he willed. He also approved of the marks, the way the peeked out from underneath the garments. <A work of art,> he thought across their connection.

_"May this rookie have one more kiss before we walk out that door?"_

Hawker smiled, relishing the control he'd been given now, loving that Chris was loving it. He knelt down in front of the kid, his massive, hard-edged bulk once again throwing his tiny frame into deep shadow. He bent his head down low, brought his lips close to those small ones. One of his hands firmly grabbed the back of his head again, and the other... the other slid a finger under the rear waistband of his sweats to part those delicious ass cheeks and press against that tight little opening that he was already looking forward to violating later.

"You may," he said, languid, rough, and deep. Then he captured the lower part of his pilot's face in a deep kiss, forcing his mouth open to accept an enormous tongue big and long enough to fellate.  _So hot. So small. So intoxicating._

He broke the kiss with his mouth open, and a thread of saliva spread between them. His hands drew away from the young man.

"You're dismissed, rookie."

 

* * *

 

<I'll be better once I've hit the size you're looking for. Then you'll be painting on Michelangelo's David.> He passed the idea of the robot roughly examining the pilot, ruthlessly examining his muscles and physique. Carefully adjusting the exercise until  **his**  human looked ripe for being perfection.

THe head grab did two things to the rookie. First it meant that his head could be tilted about and kept in place. It also allowed the giant to keep the greenhorn still. Rather like holding the strings of a puppet. His sweats drew tight to the front of him. A cool metal digit curled down and parked right on that tight little rosebud.

Chris gulped. The soft shaft flexed against those sweats. The sensation of METAL, unyielding parking right at his vulnerable backside elicited sparks in him he didn't think he'd have. The submissive urge in him increased ten fold; and Hawker could feel it as sure as he could feel the kid would need plenty of lube to stretch around even his smallest finger.

His tongue lost the fight in it's own mouth, compressed as his cheeks bulged and lips were stretched to their fullest. He hugged the neck of his big bot, left foot coming up on the toe as he pressed into the oversized smooch. He suckled on that oral extension, a goofy smile as it ended, watching the streamer connect them for a moment longer. A little part of him knew that Hawker'd likely work him even harder tomorrow. Now that it knew how much the pilot wanted to please the behemoth.

"Yes Sir. See you tomorrow."

The massive door opened. Chris walked out, wishing that he wasn't pushing out against his sweats so much.

* * *

 

Hawker stood ominously in the shadowed doorway, watching as Chris made his way over to the elevator, trying to hide his chub. Just keeping the kid on his toes, the mech wryly thought to himself, feeling their connection over the wireless fade as their proximity grew weak. He looked good in a collar.

"Hey, uh..." A sensor blip, 2 o'clock low. "Big Nine, you free?"

Hawker stepped out into the open and glanced over. It was one of the MRAV pilots and an analog officer, an exo-suit operator. Becker and Wen, if he remembered correctly. The giant mech vented, dragging his foreprocessors back to the land of the living. He'd had his fun with Chris, now it was time to be a SWAT mech again.

"What do you need."

Wen, a small but solidly built young woman, twisted up her face as she scrolled along her datapad and stepped forward. "Cory and I are trying to figure out how to get my Hatchet to install the new OS, but we keep running into some shell syntax error."

Becker, tall, built, and probably better fit for underwear modeling, scratched his scalp. He looked uneasy about talking to the mech, but it wasn't anything Hawker wasn't used to. "I know you've been busy with that Celn kid, so I'm not sure if Kole's been keeping you in the loop about the activity going on out there, but..."

Hawker didn't wait for an invitation to start heading in the direction of Bay 4, reserved for disaster relief vehicles. Most of them were exo-suits - Caterpillar brand T5 Hatchets and T6 Tomahawks - basically dumbware mechs designed for manual operation. The analogger would strap in, crank it on, and and the thing became an extension of their own limbs, multiplying a human's natural strength by 100-fold. If a building came down and people needed pulling out, you sent in the exo unit. Not even Hawker was permitted near a collapsed building.

"Lead Dawn's getting cocky," he finished for him. "I glanced at Owens' report yesterday - Kole's man at the harbor, not sure if you know him. Says weapons smuggling is picking up."

Becker continued, and the two humans stayed at an easy SWAT mech's arm's length away. "Yeah, Gutierrez told us to have the exo unit ready to move out in case anything big happens. HuffPo criticized us for our last clean-up job, and well... we're trying to look good for the cameras."

Hawker growled his dissatisfaction as he walked with easy, measured strides meant to help the little fleshjobs keep up with him. His feet made relatively little sound for being something so big and heavy. "Yeah, yeah. Bunch of damned armchair activists think they know how to do our jobs better than we do. Journalism's just a spectator sport these days. Let's see a reporter call shots better than one of us when there's bullets grazing his kevlar." Hawker's vocal dislike of the news media was well-known around 42. Kole sometimes joked that the mech was the bastard reincarnation of General Patton himself - it wouldn't have surprised anyone if it'd turned out to be true. "It's all form over function with those people. They'll argue about Oxford commas when Chicagoans' lives are at stake down here."

"When Chicagoans' lives are at stake..." Becker echoed with a little edge to his voice.

The unspoken words hung in the air as they stopped at Bay 4, but Hawker was not usually one to leave something left unsaid if he could avoid it. "Rumors travel like wildfire around here. I know what you're all thinking... that I won't be deployable for at least another month at this rate, let alone raid-ready. You're going to get your heavy-hitter back, and soon. I promise."

Wen shrugged. "I-it's not that we don't think you're not capable, Hawker. You're the best machine the rust belt's got. It's just..."

He held up his hand. He wanted to get started before this conversation continued. "Just show me which Hatchet you need me to work on."

"O-of course, sir."

\---

The mech connected to the primitive machine with a hardline: a cable connected from the side of his arm to the Hatchet's computer directly. Sensors dulled while he dove into the small, lifeless space like squeezing into a broom closet. It was a mess in there, he noticed. Old code carelessly heaped on top of even older code - it baffled him why anything would still be equipped with anything but a quantum computer anymore. They had so much more breathing room. Still, he quickly found the broken files spewing errors like a busted fire hydrant. To his mind's eye they appeared like tangled knots that undulated and pulsed their garbage data, woe be to the cubicled information around it.

Chris hadn't come up again yet, and Hawker was hoping that he wouldn't. He could compartmentalize as well as any other officer of rank, but... his experience with the kid was still fresh in his memory cortexes.  _Delectably_  fresh. It would have been nice not to take that away from him, but it didn't seem to be in the cards.

"So... do you like  _anything_  about Celn?" came the sudden question from Becker. He'd stuffed his hands into his sweatpant pockets and dropped his gaze to glare at the floor.

Optics flickered back online. The mech realized, when he bit back a knee-jerk lashing, that this  _may_  be harder to tiptoe around than he thought. Did he play it hard like he would have before? Or did he make a point of being a  _little_  more approachable to try and put a few suspicions to rest?

He opted to aim for someplace in the middle. "I like that he doesn't sass me."

"Yeah? Not a peep out of him? Not even when you're -"

"Cory!"

The young man turned to the analogger, looking incredulous. "What? You saw Chris walk out of there, you saw what his neck looked like."

Wen was clearly torn between genuine concern for Chris and trust for Hawker. "Cory, It's none of our -"

Hawker shot the glare this time. Crank up the heat a little. "You're right. It's neither of your damn business what I do with my pilot. I work him hard because the work is hard." In a warning voice: "You wanna try it, scab? C'mon, let's link up sometime."

Cory Becker made himself a little bit smaller and stepped away.

"You better watch what you say about a job you know _nothing about_ , kid."

"Yes, sir."

The mech turned back to Leslie Wen, who was both sheet white and appalled at her fellow's behavior. He liked her. She had a sense of boundaries that the gun-jocks around here didn't always respect. The analoggers were like that, though. Relaxed. Professional. Didn't blast their garbage music over the PA during downtime. If this had been Becker's MRAV the mech were sorting out, it would take a direct order from Kole to keep him from walking away right now. But it was Wen's machine - he'd do it for her.

The tense moment dragged on, though; a lot longer than he was hoping for. It seemed that Chris disturbed them a great deal, and it was his responsibility as a captain to call a spade a spade. And pretending that the kid  _didn't_  look like a tie-dye t-shirt wasn't going to help any. In fact, it may wind up biting them both in the ass. He vented and looked away.

"I know how it looks," Hawker said at length, forcibly separating the memory with the associated positive emotions.

Crickets.

"C'mon, officers. You got something to say? Say it."

Wen swallowed. "I'll just say this: not a day goes by where I wish I went to scab school."

"Not a day goes by where I wish I went to  _Hawker's_  scab school," Becker snorted, still uneasy.

"Celn would be devastated if I terminated him. Ask him yourself if you don't believe me," the mech said, almost done untangling the electronic knot in the Hatchet's computer. "He's no Lee. I know that and you know that. But he'll do. And when that 'something big' happens, you can bet your ass that we'll be ready."

 

* * *

He brought his clothes into the shower with him. He watched how the bruises and abrasive marks flowed over his skin. The bites though! Hawker had a big mouth and large teeth. Washing hurt. The touch of clothes on the newest ones hurt enough that he ate two tylenol. Two days from now, medical retesting. He might be back in with Hawker by then.

That evening he'd finished dinner and was staring at the empty tray when the chair next to him pulled out. A big hand clapped in a friendly fashion on his shoulder. The one with the bruise that went most of the way up his neck. His digestive bliss got interrupted as he hissed and flinched, head coming to shoulder. THen he turned and looked.

Next to him sat a large woman in uniform. Solid, had to be 5'10" or 6'. Solid like a bodybuilder. She smelled of sweat and cordite. Her black uniform said SWAT, and her arms filled out the sleeves he wished his did. The thickly padded vest sat open and her modest sized bust fit her strong physique. The bars on her lapels meant lieutenant. Chris felt more then a little intimidated.

Her arm slid off his shoulder after another squeeze. She held a Pepsi in her right hand, fingers easily wrapping around the bottle. The wince seemed to please her. WHen she spoke, Chris herd her exhaustion.

"Well, I finally run into you. Did you know you are hard to find?" She took a pull of the soda, and Chris watched how it fizzed and sloshed in the clear plastic. "Rookies would normally be on level 5, stuffed in the barracks. Maybe sneaking up town to hit the bar after their first week. Or go wild with their first paycheck. I heard you went halfsies on a pizza."

Her finger waved, comically indicating her disapproval. "Seeing as how it looks like Big Nine is only trying to kill you, I decided I would come say hello. Lieutenant Sarah Toren. LT, for short rookie. Imagine my surprise when Kole was waiting for me when I get back. Asks me how my hand to hand is."

She put her free hand next to the pilot's. The one Hawker'd so joyously put between his molars. Not only is hers bigger, but the thickness of her wrist! "Nice bruises kid. You know you are supposed to be in the cockpit before it closes on you?"

"Uh, yes ma-- LT."

"You DO talk! And to someone who is not a division head. Well, there goes another rumor." She shook her head, her short hair just long enough to dance on her forehead. "Tomorrow at 0900, I am going to be getting paid time and a half to beat you. And I will continue to do so until you can pass the SWAT standard. I will go easy on your first day. Training you is letting me sleep in, after all."

Chris's agonized expression said more then his 'Yes LT.' did; and Toren let a small smile brighten up her face. "And besides that, we will work together once they clear the two of you for duty. You will be meeting most of SWAT soon rookie. Room C-14, 0900." Toren got up, using his shoulder as leverage. He make an appropriate whine. "And yes, there is padding. You can wear it. Get a mouthguard."

Chris made sure to get out of the mess before she made it thought the line. "See you tomorrow rookie!" Toren cat-called the greenhorn, getting more then a few laughs. Chris headed to supply. Another package of jocks, two cups and two mouthguards.

He spent most of the evening with ice on the worst bruising, with his arm and leg elevated. The collar charged as the computer played soothing techno. He'd have to ask Hawker about the old classic music that he listened too. It was pleasant.

 

* * *

 

Kole had officially stepped away from the homicide unit for this case to let them do their thing. The perp had been sloppy - while bullets had been meticulously removed from the scene, and even pried from the bodies to prevent ballistics from weapon matching, she'd made the mistake of leaving a piece of DNA evidence in the form of a hair, which they'd matched to a love letter in a nightstand sealed with a bright red kiss. "Hope the affair was worth it," Sergeant Kole said as he submitted his final report on the case. The DA said it would be a quick and easy trial.

Still, Kole wished that the case could be tied to the gangs. At least it might have provided another piece to the ever-changing puzzle.

\---

"How's man and machine getting along?" he asked Colburn over a big cup of sugared coffee that Monday evening. He was behind his desk, but not sitting. The office, probably the coziest, warmest room in the entire precinct, needed tidying up, and he was busy throwing old take-out boxes into the trash bin. It took away from the Walnut furniture and his small library of books.

"I'm not sure if 'getting along' are the right words, Sarge," she sighed, rubbing at a temple. "But they're functioning. I don't know how, hell if I know  _why_ , but they are. The kid refuses to say no. Doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word."

"Sounds like Lee to me. If he'd taken no for an answer, we wouldn't have gotten ourselves a Vanguard Hawker. And without a Vanguard Hawker, I don't see how we could have brought down Rubio and his boys. Or the FedEx Bomber. Or the Triads."

"I know, sir. I know. But Hawker... I can't explain it, Kole. He hates that kid's  _guts_. You should see the look in his eyes when he stares at him. The way his... his systems change pitch. Lee was like his big brother; the man could do no wrong. Chris is a  _chew toy_."

Kole rubbed at his clean-shaven chin, finally sitting down. "And yet Celn is still here." Strummed his fingers on the desk. "Somebody's doing something right. How long do we have before the DOJ comes sniffing around again?"

Colburn shook her head wearily. "Attorney General wanted Hawker fully rehabilitated within 6 months of Lee's death, or..."

Kole chewed on the end of a pen. "Or the project contract is up for renegotiation... and Big Nine gets transferred."

"To be quite honest with you, I'm not sure his AI can survive another wipe." Colburn was genuinely concerned. "The DF2... it's not ones and zeroes anymore, Kole. It's memories and patterns and pathways. It's Alzheimer's. Dementia.  _Schizophrenia._  You're not deleting files when you wipe a DF2. You're ripping pages from a  _book._ "

The silence between them spoke volumes. They weren't just talking about the fate of a machine; they were talking about the fate of someone they'd both come to care about quite a bit over the past 8 years. They were talking about a friend.

"So if Celn isn't up to snuff, we won't have time to replace him. It's game over."

"Game over, sir."

"I tell you what you  _don't_  tell him," Kole said, straightening up in his chair and putting the pen away. "You don't tell him about the Justice Department mandate. That'd be enough to demoralize anyone."

"And Celn?"

"Like I said:  _somebody_  is doing  _something_  right. I'll check in for myself again in a day or two. For now, keep 'em both busy. Seems like having their plates full helps."

Colburn stood up, fingering the strap on her purse. She was going out with a few techs tonight to take on the town, and get liquored up. She needed it. "If you say so, sir." She made her way to the door, hand on the knob. "Don't work too hard, Sarge. Makes Jack a dull boy."

Kole flashed her a smile. "Good thing my name's not Jack."

When she left, he turned on his computer to mull over the latest reports on the smuggling situation. He'd be in there for the next 6 hours before he even remembered to eat.

 

* * *

 

In a place like 42, word gets around. Rumors circulate with the air conditioning. 4 months with Big Nine off the streets. Things had been bad before, the situation that'd take Lee down had been a spike. Many hoped that it would've been a high-water mark of danger. But things were getting worrisome. Enough robotic parts being smuggled in for shipping crates to be caught. Armaments pushing through and getting snagged in police nets. The usual mix of stolen and new skewed to fresh, if badly made, weapons. Good enough to kill before they broke unfortunately. Drug running had gone up, and the streets were running red.

Anyone who looked at the cycles of such things would've called it a routine upward trend. The police are concerned and are concentrating their efforts of stemming the sources before they worst got distributed. The FBI is digging after the major players and locking up criminals by the trainload. The media called it 'The worst crimewave sense the nuclear winter.'

"In tonight's news, our continuing story on the waterfront situation. We go live to our news drone images." The display shifted. At the many crumbling piers that made up the more industrial part of Chicago, thirty car-like blobs floated near and on the surface. The loading cranes and a number of union workers are putting in overtime to fish them up and out. A line of flatbed trucks are waiting to receive them. THe drone moves along, zooming in where one is opened, resting on a flatbed and surrounded by FBI and police. It's some sort of submersible. Unmanned and packed full of crates, each about 1.5 feet on all sides. The crates are jammed with weaponry. Packed neatly, still in wrapped plastic with foam packing. "The submersibles are running Chinese hardwater, and while they did wipe their OS, our reporters tell us they were speaking in Mandarin before they all came up to the surface."

The view returns to the studio. "About how many weapons is that Sally?" Inquired the anchor. In the studio, sall is an android that had been part of the local news for 15 years. She offered factual commentary and consisted of arms, a head, a torso that is bolted to a newsdesk. "Approximately 7500 automatic firearms with ammunition." came her robotic tones. "Assuming all vessels are equally packaged." The anchor held a hand to his ear, then grimly looked to the audience. "While the police have no comment, sources within the FBI indicate that the subs were forced to the surface by FBI hacking. How long such submersibles have been operating in our harbors is unknown at this time. We'll be back after these messages from our sponsors."

\-------------------------------------------------

Rumors also float about the internal workings of 42 by it's population. The betting pool on Hawker and Celn went up and down harder then a jackhammer's chisel. That evening it'd gone down hard. Celn ends up crippled had 8 new marks today, bringing it to 19. Celn dies stood at 6 in total, having picked up 1 more. The betters who had money on lengths of time had both day and week counted out. Happily partnered had 5 betters. Fails after first mission still had the largest pool and the worst odds. 3 to 1, with 72 bets. Colburn watched as Hawker spoke to the two operators. Celn looked like Hawker had throttled him, after using him as a punching bag.

That rookie needed to learn when to quit. They'd heard the noises Hawker'd made, even with the office door closed. When that much of the HLX-9 ran that it needed for it's engines to scream at that RPM? What had they argued over? What kind of balls did it take to get something 3 times your height to back off? To tell it to back off? He'd been wearing the collar. Perhaps that was enough of an edge. SHe'd known that adjusting from Lee would be hard. Washington said they'd need to wipe the Deep Feild 2. She said they didn't have a year for just the damn AI to get running right, AND find a pilot.

Big Nine worked calmly, talking with Becker and Wen. The T5s and T6s had to be at their best, and she'd approved the purchase of better code after the sub story broke. You had to be a fool to think that mini subs, smart ones, ones small enough to sneak up the bigger sewer pies; were all caught. That this had been their first run. The subs had worn paint, their bodies had barnacles. SOmeone had been moving product in.. and what had they moved out? Anyone with the brains to ship that much in would have something going the other way.

Still, there is one benefit to having a punching bag for the big hitter. He at least didn't thunder at the operators right away. Looked like they were getting along, praise be.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris woke up in pain. His phone told him it was 0137. He ACHED! Parts of him felt like they were on fire. The bites, those were the worst. He.. he'd need something. He couldn't sleep like this. THe ice bags had turned to cool bags of water. Pulling on a pair of shorts, he got on the elevator and rode down to medical. He went left, following the arrows that told him where the medical droids waited. 07-C already had emerged from it's modest alcove.

"Celn. You are weeping." it observed cooly. Pre-warmed mechanical hands in rubber gloves touched his neck. Gently. Lifted his shirt, it's body conveniently blocking the only camera.

Chris brought a hand to his face. His cheeks were wet. He.. he hadn't even  _noticed_. "I'm hurting doc. I can't sleep."

It lowered his shirt and rolled to the dispensary, before returning in a minute. It swabbed his good arm, sticking him with a small disposable needle. Almost instantly Chris relaxed, needing to put a hand on the nearby wall to steady himself. It also provided a bottle of pills and water. The woozy pilot obediently sucked two of them down.

"5mg of Naproxen by injection. One week's worth Bromelain tablets, take 2 per day. Your drug use history prevents the medical staff from administering pain medication in any form that can be abused. The tablets will reduce bruising."

Chris felt a very familiar high. "I feel good now. Thanks doc." He turned to dance down the hall back to bed.

"Celn." Chris flinched, damn those droids had the perfect authoritative medical tone! "I have to enter this event in the system. You have a medical examination in 1 day at 0900. Chief Engineer Colburn will be in attendance unless she has more pressing duties."

oh. OH! He might be high, but he got the message. "Yes Doctor. I'll get to bed now." he'd said the title respectfully this time.

07-C rolled back into it's alcove where it's gloves were removed and it was sterilised.

Chris stumbled to bed. He crashed hard, not even noticing how the weight of the sheets made the bruises ache.

\-----------------------------------

Wake up. Take clothes into shower. Wash, dry, dress without being seen. Put on cup. Take pill. Receive breakfast. Three english muffins with some kind of cheese and sausage thing going on. And the ubiquitous protein drink. He'd spar in about half in hour. Then lunch, PT with Hawker. Tomorrow would be.. the test. Then PT with Hawker. Maybe interfacing if allowed. Preston couldn't fit him in regularly, but he knew he'd be back on the range soon enough. He doubted he'd have naughty thoughts about Preston anymore. Hard to compete with a giant!

"Celn!" fuck. Wait? That wasn't Tsung's voice! He turned, munching down the 3rd sandwich. A girl about his height, white skin. She looked a little tired, and had a tray of food herself. A tray that.. did not match the one he had. There were other cafeterias? Then he realised that he hadn't even looked. They had to be, this one didn't have enough space to feed the station. 42 is bigger then a city block! She had a cup of coffee that had a starbucks logo on it, and fancy breakfast sandwiches.

"Rumor had it that you ate in this dive." Her eyebrows and face indicated that she found the way he is hurriedly cramming the food into his mouth; gross. Chris turned, polishing off the food like a starving man. "Are you okay?"

He took a long moment to finish before he burped, turning back to talk. He didn't want to chance anyone seeing that he'd been getting above-board rations. "Yea-*URP-ah. Excuse me." Wiping his mouth on a napkin, he checked the time on his phone before cracking open his beverage. "Hello, uh, Wen." he greeted, having seen her name on her uniform. Duty uniform, no rank he noticed, with thick pads. Looked like an exo suit uniform. Well broken in, but she didn't have an interface port on the back of her neck? "I have to go in 5 minutes. Training." he explained in a voice that said he wished he could still be in bed.

Wen is the picture of politeness, which is astounding considering the time of day. "Well, just wanted to meet you. I'm an exosuit pilot, T5 hatchet. Last night Hawker helped patch the operating system." Chris looked at her expectantly. Then, like the way the sun would come up, it dawned on him that she is trying to have a conversation.

"Uh, good. That's good. He's more then capable of doing that. Um. How come you wanted to see me?" flat, then confused. Chris didn't seem to be a morning person. Then he went back to chugging back the thick drink.

She didn't give much away, just enjoyed some coffee before replying. "I saw you leave his office yesterday. We could hear the noises." Chris felt sweat on his back.

<Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!> It was too early to have to play dumb. Or was it? And he couldn't leave! he had like, a good 3 minutes to kill. Crap!

"We had an intense discussion." he understated.

"Celn, everyone's pulling for you and Nine to work out. Watching you limp away, hunched over, while he stares daggers into your back? It's not good for morale." She takes a small bite of her breakfast.

"I want this, Wen." quiet and firm.

"He beats you. He wrung you neck, that's not hyperbole. I can see the marks on you." worry in her voice. Worry that Clen was suffering because.. he didn't know why. That suffering is bad, he assumed.

Chris stood up, wishing that he had longer suddenly. "You are kind. Very kind to come up here and talk with me. I can tell you are concerned about us. I want him. This chance means the world to me. I will make it, and we will figure out how to be the best. Can we trade phone numbers? I'll mess you when I have time?"


	9. A Little Cat and Mouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the 'GTFO Training'.

Hawker had spent the entire morning in the simulation room. Not his favorite, but it was an indispensable training tool for when the crash room and firing range weren't enough. A thick cable descended from the ceiling in the otherwise unadorned space, plugged into a port on the back of his head with a plug big enough bludgeon somebody with. Sims were far too complex to run on wireless, and required the use of a whole bank of million-dollar computers to generate the physics, sensory input, and AIs.

It was taxing work, and Hawker was looking forward to a rest. After Chris' lunch, it was back in the crash room for "GTFO training". They were supposed to have done this exercise that day he had his outburst, but it didn't exactly work out that way, did it? Hawker would be playing the bad guy to Chris' unprotected pilot, and it was Chris' job to just make it out alive.

The whole thing had a decidedly different tone to it than it otherwise would have. The mech was looking forward to playing cat and mouse out in the open like that, and was expecting the both of them to... work up an appetite that they might have the chance to satisfy afterward. Maybe he could get Chris to give him a hose down in the wash. The crash room  _was_  a pretty filthy arena, all things considered...

He smiled to himself, and the idea seemed to wake him up again. With something to look forward to, the next hour would pass by in no time. He lifted his dummy rifle and engaged exercise no. 4031. The white room gave way to featureless high-rises, upturned cars, and littered about his field of vision were HUDs provided by the battle mask. Words appeared in his head:

_'The mayor is being held hostage on the top floor of city hall by 8 heavily armed targets. Objective: extract victim, arrest perpetrators, damage less than $2m in property. Activate the HELP menu for more information about this exercise, or to select another. START by downloading this operation's casefile. Good luck.'_

 

* * *

 

Wen chewed on her breakfast sandwich, her premium coffee quietly steaming the in the waxed paper cup. Celn's phone number is at the top of her contact list, and she thought about what Becker had told her that night. 'He's going to crack.' They were talking outside the motor pool. Hawker had gotten her T5 in the best condition she'd ever felt. It didn't even rub on the shin pads anymore. 'I want to talk to him. He seems pretty nice.' Becker snorted, cracking open a redbull. His MRAV was going to be keeping him up for another two hours at least. 'Good luck. Heard they're working him 8 - 10 a day. Not all of those bruises are from Nine. Scuttlebutt says he inhales the slop from the free chow hall. Three times a day.'

Wen stuck out her tongue. 'On a pilot's salary? He could order out every day and stay in the black.' Becker just shrugged. 'Rumor says he's stuck up, talks to no one. Or he's scared shitless and is just trying to survive long enough to get rejected. Might be why Nine hates him so much. It's been barely a week of course.' He patted her on the shoulder and went back in. Hawker's impressive stereo had some sort of calming classical pulsing. She frowned. Only one way to find out.

Chris wasn't rude or scared. He had seemed shocked that anyone would want to speak with him. Wen picked up her phone and started typing. 'Hello Chris. How'd your day go..'

\--------------------------------------------  
Room C-14

Chris had left the collar off for this one. The mouthguard hugged his upper semicircle of teeth. A smooth helmet covered his head and ears. He wore a thickly padded chest protector and shoulder guards. THey'd hurt like hell going on, but once they'd settled the pain just sort of throbbed.

Lieutenant Sarah Toren wore a sports bra under a spandex top, and padded capri pants. Fingerless gloves and running shoes. The hours one and two she'd covered simple stuff. How to fall down. How to get knocked on your ass and get up smoothly. They'd done some high drops, about 8 feet into a thick cushion of air. He'd enjoyed that, smiles and 'Yes LTs.' She'd been working with gentle takedowns and kept finding it surprising how easy it is. The rookie is small, at least he'd said they were making him do PT daily and had stuck a weight goal on him. Kid needed some beef on his frame.

"Right. Your fun time is over. I want you to try and take me down. I'll block your shots. I'll dance around what you try, but I will not strike back. Show me what you got." her hands came up in a classic boxing guard, and for someone as built as she is, hopped easily on her toes.

Chris felt like Hawker could've asked for the same result, and they outcome would have been the same. Him struggling uselessly. With a painful roll of the shoulders, he gave it his best anyway.

A bum rush just had her dodge, with a smack on the helmet for being 'stupid.'

The basic police academy stuff she countered. A roundhouse she blocked. Quick and low, she stepped back and left his fist extended into the air. A good thump to his elbow and he let out an adequate whine. "Tender spot Greenhorn?"

Leg sweeps she say coming, and the last one she'd turned her foot so he'd caught his under her sole and went down. At least he hit like he'd been taught, instead of just collapsing. "Get up rookie! I'm still here."

Chris felt the anger and frustration building up. She is goading him along. She is in ten times the shape and had reach for days. She wanted an angry Chris?  **FINE.**

Ten minutes later, he lay on the mat with his steam run out. His chest hurt where she'd hit him, dead center over his heart. She'd gotten him in the gut too, which is why he is currently sucking wind. Toren rubbed her chin. "I did not expect you to go all feral on me kid." Of course, right before she'd laid on the pain he'd gotten handsy. Dirty. The way his fingers had tried to worm into..

..the leer on his face..

..and that is why she'd also kicked him right in the jewels. Good thing he'd been wearing a cup, or he might had been in medical. She'd wanted to stomp his head.

"You need to learn how to work down an opponent. When you are in Big Nine, you will have the luxury of being the biggest thing around." She checked the time. "You have ten minutes. Then it will be the heavy bag. You are going to learn to kick and punch properly." She went out of the room, to get some fresh air. What had she expected? A little twerp to turn into a kung fu master?

The familiar taste of a carbonated beverage danced on her gums. So he needed work. She'd pushed him to see what would happen. And she found out. He didn't give up, he'd tackle a problem 'till it crushed him. After ten she came back in. He stood at the heavy bag, sweat soaking his clothes. He moved his arm slowly, practicing how to move for the blow. And doing it wrong.

"Oh god. How the hell did you pass this part of the exam? You just got out of the academy a few weeks ago, you should know better then to make a fist like that."

"They're lenient if you're going to get some bling." He rolled his head, indicating the implant.

"Hmmmpf. Get your feet apart like this rook. And move your arm like this."

\-----------------------------

Lunch. He had to shower beforehand, the sweat had his shirt going see-though. And the hot water felt so good he had a little cry in relief. He checked his phone. Message from Wen. He'd read it later, he needed to meet the boss.

\----------------------------

Chris walked into the familiar space of the crash room. He'd had to give the collar an extra scrub, it'b been soaked with Hawker's load. Still faintly smelled of that copious output. He keyed on the wireless. "Sir! Celn reporting for training."

 

* * *

 

"Hope you're ready to get stepped on, greenhorn," Hawker said, dragging his tongue along his teeth so that Chris could see.

This was going to be even more fun than than he thought, wasn't it?

In the mech's hand was his rifle - it was unloaded, and served as a purely psychological weapon. But it was an intimidating sight for sure. The room was different than it was before, too. A fake alley had been installed, and a few walls put up to simulate buildings for Chris to corner, to run between, to take cover behind. A few other props completed the scene: utility boxes, broken glass, a dumpster. Hawker had specifically requested a more realistic scene. Chris was no stranger to the street - he might have a harder time taking a mere funhouse version of one seriously.

"I see the LT put you through your paces?" he asked, noticing that the first thing he felt when the kid stepped in was a resounding  _ow, my achin'..._. "I heard she's good. Do her proud for me."

"Now." He hefted the heavy firearm up to his shoulder, and instructed Chris to start at one corner of the room. "Your goal is to make it past me to the exit. Sounds easy, right?" He engaged his battle mask to do away with that familiar face, replaced now with more black, and a thin mirrored visor over his optics. Suddenly inhuman, unemotional, distant. He could be any mech, now. This sent a tingle of excitement through his CPUs. "Of course it does. Any questions before we start?"

 

* * *

 

Oh that TONGUE! Chris stood up straighter. He'd have to figure out how to flirt back better, because all he is pondering about is Hawker stepping on him. Pushing him down under a boot bigger then the pilot.

"Yes Sir. She knows what she's about." Toren did know, unfortunately. SHe also knew that Chris hadn't been expected to be fantastic at hand to hand. As the examiner for him had put it, 'Kid, you're going to be smaller than most anyone trying to take you down. Shoot first or run.' His arms ached too, as she'd made him punch until they about fell off!

Chris took his time walking to the start point, taking in the layout of the room. Parts of it he couldn't see all that well, If he had time, he would have examined the situation of figure out just which ways the alleys went, if there were sneaky pockets or tunnels he could use.

 _"Your goal is to make it past me to the exit. Sounds easy, right?"_  NOPE! Chris knew how fast the mech could move. He might as well lay down right now! He couldn't hide from Hawker, even without the collar. That face mask though. And the voice. Event he connection took on a hard edge.

"That exit there?" he could feel the ascent that the clearly labels position across the room is his intended destination.

He looked up. The windows that Hawker had punched still was there, busted and patched with tape. Replacing it likely wasn't a top priority. There looked to be at least one figure up there as well. "Well, unless I get to walk in there, you could just pick me off with your rifle." He mused, attempting to stall for time. He bent down, touching his toes. THen he came up, doing a squat before arching his back with hands on his hips. He did the sideways lean too, all with his back to the bot. He had a pleasing backside, and he made sure to show it off enough that the straps of his jock showed through his sweatpants.

"I think I am as ready as I can be." He stepped behind a building, putting some cover between hismelf and the mech. Looking for a means to keep in cover, he started jogging toward the exit. Until he heard footsteps, he should be fine.

 

* * *

 

Hawker wanted to give that boy a spanking. But, another game for another time.

Instead, he expanded his presence across their connection like an encroaching wall. Kid needed to know that the mech was was serious. And hungry.

Their 'argument' in Hawker's office opened the proverbial floodgates, and it was anything goes now - for his giant machine dick, that is. He watched Chris stall for time, then head for his starting position with a little too much casualty for his liking. He realized that he wanted to get his hands on that kid every damn day - but it wasn't exactly feasible. If this was going to be their arrangement, Hawker needed to be patient, otherwise he  _would_  seriously injure his precious pilot one of these days.

_"I think I am as ready as I can be."_

<I don't think you are,> he sent, able to leave the thought dripping with erotic potential much more than he would be able to under such routine surveillance if he'd spoken aloud. <But that's the point.>

He took up his own position, shuttering their shared thoughts and replacing it with sound played directly into Chris's mind: the sounds of a gunfight. Lead spewing, mech feet hitting broken pavement, distant indiscernible shouts from humans, all designed to induce a real fight or flight mechanism. Already he could feel Chris's heart pumping in response.

Hawker took up his position catty-corner to the human, nearest the exit, and the exercise began.

It was all too easy to suddenly view Chris as a target. After all, had he not been just the previous day, and to pleasurable results? The mech stepped into the arena, broken glass and broken concrete crunching under his feet as he hunted for the pilot making his escape on foot. Gang mech pilots had a big incentive to gun down police scabs - the good ones, like Chris, like  _Lee_ , were difficult to replace and could garage a mech for months.

Hawker didn't speak, didn't think across their connection. He moved like a looming shadow, visor catching the light as he looked this way and that.

Chris tried sneaking out from behind one of the fake buildings and Hawker was instantly on him, knocking him to the ground with the barrel of his rifle pressed to his tiny chest for effect. And for fun.

<Where's your sidearm?> he half-goaded, half-demanded. <They're still useful in these situations. You could take out my radio, or even potentially blind me with a well-aimed shot.> He gestured with his weapon. <Go grab a paint gun. Let's test your aim under duress while we're here.>

 

* * *

 

Like the waves coming in for high tide, the robot's deviant desires made themselves known. Chris is treated to a vision himself draped over the massive knee, fellating that mechanised cock as he is spanked. Hawker holding his nude form, Hawker biting him, Hawker kissing him, Hawker grinding him, the two of them repeatedly engaging on a regular basis.

He let his partner know the feeling is mutual, sending a vivid thought back. A naked Chris in the palm of his hand, the boy's feet together, the machine taking them into it's mouth as it pushed the pilot into its hungry maw. He wanted to be take what could be dished out. They'd formed a perverse connection and he  **liked**  it!

Then the connection went dark. Chris listened, finding it hard to place which noises were Hawker's footsteps, and which sounds were coming from the mech as it walked. He began to spy possible means to go. Ways to sneak around. None of the cars were operational but he'd be smart to attempt to commandeer one in the field. While he'd be a large target, he wouldn't be a large target for long. He should be inside the building, hiding?

Not Hawkers voice, but his own thoughts came back to him. <Hide from what? Thermal imaging? X-ray vision? Sensor Arrays? You have to get the hell out!> His expression pulled into a scowl. That is right. He should be sprinting, dodging between cover. If he didn't, the enemy would ju-----

He knew the Ai was smirking behind the face-shield as it bore down on him.

oh no.

"Ow OW OW!" he growled. The barrel of the gun is wider then his torso, it's like getting poked by a cannon. When he is allowed to get up, he does so, brushing off the debris. <Yes Sir. Getting a weapon.>

He stumbled off, leaving the big guy to get to the starting point. From the back, his implant damage seemed to be clearing up. No real bruises or damage from this side. He'd look much better with asymmetric lines, bite marks layered like a henna tattoo. At the weapon rack he examined the choices. Rifles, shotguns. He'd have neither if he had made the emergency exit from the mech. And even if one is installed, he'd be better served by a pistol anyway. Which is why he picked up what looked like a child's toy.

Load, load CO2 cylinder. He did a test fire, at the little chroney station, splatting the target at 20 yards.

The constant training is catching up with the rookie. He wanted to jog up to position, but he just felt tired. He had to save his energy for the these escape runs. THe worst part is how he'd been stuffed with food, so his aching limbs would respond to the continuous physical effort. He looked over, ready to give this a real try. "I'm going Sir. Give me somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes; so I don't know what kind of a lead I have."

Bright green weapon in hand, he made a break for it.

THis time he sprinted off the start, the gunfire and booming thunder of mech combat in his ears.

<Not enough constant buildings to make a rooftop run.>

As if his arms would LET him make that kind of climb.

<Don't know the sewer layout, it's a risk.> As he spied the classic on-street drainage. <Except this isn't a real street.>

Worth a risk, he is too easy on the surface. The gap looked to be about 8 or 10 inches, the slender pilot could just squeeze though the concrete and the asphalt. So he did.

THe interior is decidedly non-sewer like. It is far too clean, no awful smells, no wildlife. Red lights poured down their dull illumination every so often, thanks health and safety! The sharp stabs of white light from above, where manholes and grating opened to the crash room. He moved towards where he thought the exit point is located.

He could feel the ground shake as the 6 ton Mech moved nearby. He held his breath as he walked slow under a steel manhole, noting he'd probably have a hell of a time pushing one of those back up. He'd need to squeeze out another street drain. If there is one.

 

* * *

 

Chris had responded to the challenge with surprising enthusiasm this time, and Hawker decided he wasn't going to hold back.

6-ton footsteps traversed the false cityscape with ease. He planted one of his feet on the hood of a car -  _CRASH!_  - and violently shoved it aside, up against one of the building facades. Metal shrieked and bolts went dancing across the floor in its wake. Panoptics were fully engaged, and when he rounded the corner, he saw Chris for the briefest second before he went sliding down into a facsimile storm drain and disappeared.

 _Clever little boy,_  he thought, grinning behind the mask. He was proud of the move - but he was also greatly enjoying a chase that had just gotten a little more complicated. He also considered the possibility of there being benefits to Chris' size. None of the other pilots would have been able to pull off a move like that.

The "sewer" had four outlets around the fake city blocks, and though Chris had technically won the game already by simply making himself inaccessible to enemy mechs, the kid still thought that he had to make it to the door to complete the exercise.

He kicked at a lump of concrete for effect as he slowly prowled, turning a deliberately blind eye to sensors that would have otherwise told him exactly where the human was. It crumbled a little and went rolling a short ways, throwing dust into the air. Unless Chris was already turned around under there, then the mech knew that he'd beeline for an outlet nearest the goal point.

Below him was a manhole cover, which he estimated weighed almost as much as the kid himself. Hawker crouched down over it and grabbed a piece of rebar to pry it out - his fingers were too big to grasp it. Sliding it out of the way revealed a small, clean tunnel, into which he stuck his hand in and felt around for the fun of it.

"Come out, come out..."

 

* * *

 

Chris had just fit through that space too. If he really did 'get swole' as the exercise program he'd been enrolled in promised, his ability to squeeze into tight spaces would be reduced.

He didn't speak aloud, but he'd been running a mental dialogue to himself. The ground shook and dust trickled down from the top of the fake sewer. <Oooooh, he's close.> Heavy, regular sounds had to be footfalls. He decided to risk the noise and scrambled under the manhole as fast as he dared. He'd make it just a few feet past when it moved aside with a loud scraping sound. Light streamed in, he turned to watch what happened, backing away from the brightness.

The very odd noises of the mech's had were suddenly audible. THe soft clinking of metal on metal, the hydraulic pistons pressing and moving, the whirrs of electric motors. Normally, those sounds are masked by the greaters noises from the robot's torso. The hand and forearm moved in a large circle, feeling and reaching out in all directions. Chris frowned. Hawker should be able to sport him with ease! He should have him pinned down already....

<He's playing with me.>

On the floor of the false sewer sat rocks, trash, dust and bits leftover from past environments that had been swept aside. Nothing useful for trapping that hand down below, sadly. Chris looked at the paint gun he held. Even if it were a real weapon, he'd have to score a precise hit. And that meant hitting Hawker's wrist, with the fingers at their full extension while the robot is reaching. Well he sure is reaching now!

_"Come out, come out..."_

Chris crouched down, picking up a plastic bottle and setting it upright. COming to his feet, he got his hands on his paint gun. Then he kicked the bottle right up to the hand! The tiny bottle bounced off the back of the ring finger as the hand swept by. Honestly, the impact would be barely noticeable. That hand noticed though, more of the arm pushing down and REACHING! Chris fired two shots up at that hard to hit spot, taking another step back before he turned and ran! Far up ahead he'd seen another exit, another at-grade street drain. If he could sneak out while Hawker fished for him over here? He might have a shot at escaping.

He wanted to just step into that hand through. To be held tight. Mmmpf. Perhaps once they finished, Hawker could order him to 'See me in my office.' Mpppf!

 

* * *

 

Well, Hawker was not expecting to be hit with... what even  _was_  that? A water bottle? The little shit! He jammed his arm in further, though in a real situation he would have immediately withdrawn. Which apparently was its own little mistake here too.

_Pfap pfap!_

A quick pair of shots landed in a sensitive and well-guarded spot on the inside of his wrist. It was a hydraulic fluid line that served his thumb and forefinger; only an inch of it was exposed from behind the heavy plating, and only when his hand was flexed like this.

Hawker drew his arm out to get a look at the bright orange paint, and sure enough, the little splats neatly highlighted one of the HLX-9 Vanguard's few true weak points. Chris was good with a marker. No wonder Preston liked him.

He stood up, leaving the cover off. Chris was too smart to try escaping that way until he knew the mech had walked away, but he wasn't about to camp out like a hunter in a blind and wait for his prey to come to him. No, Chris deserved better! With rebar in hand, Hawker ditched the dummy rifle and headed for the next manhole cover. He'd remove them all for a proper game of cat and mouse and eagerly wait for his prey's next move.

 

* * *

 

Chris wasn't even sure if he'd hit a vital spot to be honest. A moving target that close? Didnt' matter. The gun is next to useless, and he made his way quickly toward what the thought was the right way to go.

_wumph wumph Wumph WHAMP WHAMP Wumph Wumph_

The unmistakable sounds of a large mech passing overhead could be heard. He came to a halt, wondering just what is going to happen. It didn't take long, with a loud clank the manhole he'd been heading to opened.

<Well Shit. There goes that. Line of sight on my exits, it's pop goes the weasel and I'm the weasel.>

**< So be a sneaky weasel then.>**

He backtracked, with Hawker at the far end at least he could get a head start. He wondered.. Hawker would probably move between the sewer exits, peering down into them. Technically, the robot could use the cameras built into his hands to see. But.. he'd put money on the AI being overconfident.

_Wumph Wumph wumph wumph.._

Moving further away? That'd put the bot near the exit? Chris move back toward the first manhole, the one near the drain he'd squeezed into. At this spot there is a junction and he could see down a ways. Looked like the sewer made a square. A square around the city block's worth streets of the crash room. Made sense.

He climbed up the ladder, the rungs bent from Hawker's arm. Still, he emerged when the machine was diagonally across from himself, plenty of rubble in the way.

<Well.. why the fuck not?>

Chris sprinted to the very edge of the crash room, as far from the objective as possible. Standing with buildings and jersey barriers between him and the mech, he took quiet and slow steps. With a little luck he could make it to the exit while Hawker busily stared into grates, manholes and drains.

 

* * *

 

He'd just pried out the last manhole when -

Movement.

_There you are. What are you up to...?_

He moved quickly, on an intercept course, squeezing between the fake buildings. "C'mon greenhorn," he said, catching his fist with his other hand. "Right between the eyes. Take out these optics before I..." All 11,740 pounds of the mech lunged toward Chris, arms open wide.  _BOOM_. The whole place shook when he stomped down. "... _getcha!_ " A laugh as Chris scrambled away.

Hawker let the human put a little distance between them. He wanted to get Chris to land a few more hits so he'd have an excuse to order a scrub down later. An image of his pilot, slick with suds and rubbing a sponge all over his cod like a good boy percolated into his foreprocessors. Then afterward, they could retreat to his office to review his performance during exercise... and a few other things. Mm.

 

* * *

 

_Pfaff plap plap plap!_

The rookie pilot had aimed for center of mass. Good on organics, useless on armored mechs. THe bright orange paint splattered on the codpiece, before he raised the gun up.

_Pfew Plorp Pfew Plap Splip!_

Chin, left eye and.. ugh. Mouth. He'd managed to lob one of the pellets right into the grinning maw of the mech. More for him to clean.

SOmething about that much machinery coming after you really puts the spring in your step; the the pilot hauled ass away from the stop with an unmanly shriek. He had no chance at the exit however. Damn, if he didn't  _try_  though.

Doubling backward, hiding behind buildings, climbing up to rooftops to snipe at antennas. He had a 72% hit ratio, on a moving target with a paintball gun! If nothing else, the kid could shoot well.

Not that it was ever enough. The robot always stood between him and the exit. After forty minutes of furious dodging, near misses and a genuine moment where he'd almost made it; his legs gave out.

That moment had been clever. Incredibly clever, giving the limited time he had to work with. He'd sat a few bricks on the edge of a rooftop, balanced precariously. Him firing his gun uselessly in the air wasn't going to fool the Deep Field 2; even with most of it's sensors off. But a sudden CRASH, one that could have been him falling two stories or him now hanging on a ledge? Enough concern to get the mech to investigate...

...and find some broken bricks.

A quick check over at the exit, and he was running hard. He had a hand on his stomach, probably had a stitch in his side.

<Gotta make it gotta make it gotta make..>

_wumph wumph Wumph WHAMP WHAMP_

Like a fucking fright train. He hurt. He is  _tired_. The rookie slowed to a halt and turned; panting, having stopped. He'd been caught. So much for the bonus of evading AND getting out.

\------------------------------------

Colburn felt good about what she saw. They were playing! She'd seen Big Nine smile. It'd laughed, playing cat & mouse with it's pilot. Threatening comically (from way up there it is comical. From the ground it's fucking terrifying.), prodding gently. Encouraging the greenhorn without giving him a chance to rest.

 

* * *

 

Hawker paused to let the hits land, biting back a wry smile. They were like little wet taps, creating an uneven cluster of orange around his pelvic block, then up his belly, chest, then a few genuinely irritating hits to the face. He'd taken the mask off a short while earlier - his mistake. One of the paintballs spattered across an optic, exploded against his teeth. He wiped away the stuff with a growl, spat out the paint from his mouth.

Oh, that little shit was gonna get it.

Chris shot off like a bat out of hell when Hawker suddenly showed a renewed interest in actually taking him down, and then it was on.

\---

Colburn had popped in during the last 15 minutes, nursing a hot tea. The first snow was sticking outside, and nobody had bothered to change the thermostat in the offices yet. It was still freezing upstairs.

"They playing nice?" she asked the tech managing the station.

The tech shrugged and gestured out the viewing window. "I mean... yeah, it looks like it."

She frowned and took a better look at the scene. Hawker looked just about ready for Halloween, all black and orange, as Chris deftly maneuvered about the building facades to outsmart and evade the mech. It was a game of attrition at this point, and both parties were playing their hands well.

"Any rough contact?"

"A little, but nothing that seemed too egregious. Big Nine's pushing buttons with purpose, not just to terrify the kid."

Colburn twisted up her face in thought. Maybe Kole was right... maybe everyone had misread the situation. But at the same time, it's not like those bruises and the yelling were just her imagination, either. The A-word was coming to mind again; the pattern of extreme ups and downs seemed to be playing itself out, at least. Another kind of bet had cropped up recently in the pool: 'Hawker renders Celn unfit to pilot'. It had 2 bets. Maybe it was too soon to tell, though.

And it would be a long time before it would ever even occur to her that maybe Chris  _liked_  being smacked around.

\---

The mech caught him not by his wits or his superior physicality, but because Chris had essentially trained to failure. He stood beside one of the cars, holding onto it for balance as he caught his breath. Sweat dripped down his neck, darkened his shirt. Hawker had come running, but slowed to a stroll when he saw the kid had hit his wall, and stopped so close behind him that he practically stood between those massive tree-trunk legs.

Hands at his hips and he thrust out his codpiece the  _tiniest_  bit. The heat was in him again. This had been fun.

"Looks like Chris has the hang of this one, Big Nine," came Colburn's voice over the PA.

The mech turned, nodded to her in greeting. "As good as you can get in the crash room, at least."

"I think you should show him where the car wash is. You could use a bath," she laughed.

Hawker's mouth was tugged into a little smirk.  _Great minds think alike, Chief._  He gently nudged Chris with his foot, hips swaying directly over his head. "How about it, kid? Can you walk or do I need to carry your ass?"

 

* * *

 

Chris really wished he had some paintballs left. He'd have loved to plant an orange blob Hawker's smug face one more time. He didn't know how much time had passed but it had felt like hours. His heart refused to stop hammering and he kept panting. If he wasn't leaning on the car then he'd be on his back in the dirt. He turned, giving his Captain an exhausted salute.

"You beat.. me Sir.." he managed between breaths, swallowing and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "Thanks for.. giving.. me a.. fair shot.." he tiredly waved to the door. "of gettin'.. out."

As Colburn and the machine spoke, he wondered how long people had been observing. How long she'd been observing. He thought back to Ferdinand  _"Everyone watches Big Nine.."_  that meant everyone would watch him, too. God he is tired!

He was whipped enough to miss the first hip-thrust from his assertive partner. He didn't miss the second.

Car wash? Oh. Oh no. He instantly envisioned himself in a jockstrap and collar with nothing else. Hawker playing with it's immense arousal and telling him he'd missed a spot. 'Wash the underside again rookie, put your back into it.'

He set the paintball gun on the top of the car. Someone else could take care of it. He needed a rest before he had to get out a pressure washer and clean of 15 feet of horny mech.

Chris pushed off the car, putting himself in the open, nice and close to the toes of those boots. He raises up his arms, opening and closing his hands.

"Carry my ass. I see that look on your face." <And the swagger of your hips, big guy. We got time for 'talking'?> "If you're gonna make me soap you up, I want to rest after this."

\------------------------------------

"That went better then expected. Celn's not nearly in the shape a pilot should be in though. His endurance is low, sprint speed is low." the tech checked over the results.

"Didn't do terrible. He's a fine shot with the paint gun. Looks like.. 68% hit rate by the end. And get this, 32% of those were vital! Hawker would be down a hand, some of the right leg, mouth, eye, comms and looking left. Of course, that was after getting captured 8 times. I'm not sure how that all works out. And he knows  _where_  to hit Hawker. He might not have that luxury with a real target."

Colburn felt warm, warmer then the tea she is holding when Hawker offered to pick up the rookie, and did a gentle foot nudge. That nudge would bruise anyone. Then the kid did the classic, pick me up please, gesture. Huh. Would be nice if they started to get along. The higher ups were already riding 42 about the pair's combat ability.

Chris had been in Hawker for a week and people were talking about patrol duty. A fracking WEEK! You wouldn't stick a fresh t5 in the field with only a week's experience. THe fact that Chris had steadily preformed and not dropped dead from what he'd gone through was a miracle. They couldn't get the greenhorn trained any faster.

"Good work. Celn, no decorating Hawker. Get him washed up." She smiled, taking her finger off the PA. Let 'em have some non-combat contact. Non-arguing contact. Maybe they'd be gentle with each other.


	10. Hose-Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the wash rack scene.

_< And the swagger of your hips, big guy. We got time for 'talking'?>_

<Won't be able to talk much with your mouth full.>

_"If you're gonna make me soap you up, I want to rest after this."_

Hawker reached down and snaked his fingers under Chris's arms, lifting him up to a spot on his shoulder. There were many ways to grab a human; this was probably the most socially acceptable. "I'll take your request for R&R into consideration, rook."

He glanced back at where Colburn stood behind that taped-up glass in the viewing deck. She looked both pleasantly surprised and a little confused, and it was no mystery to him as to why. Hawker turned to the door and left, heading for the freight lift that would take them back to the lower motor pool and its adjacent wash station. They were no longer leaving a bad impression, and that's all that mattered.

 

* * *

 

Chris is warm from effort, his heart beats firmly against the thumbs on his chest. He liked behind held, and he did a hip-thrust of his own while he dangled.

<Promises, promises! Don't get your pilot riled up if you aren't going to deliver.>

Chris had plenty to hold onto when that high up. It really is amazing how smooth Hawker walked, he didn't jiggle on a footfall or lean and sway with each step. The ten minutes it took them to make the trip (Wow is the freight elevator slow!) the rookie stayed right where he'd been parked. They talked as well, dual conversations with a shared theme.

"They have markers your size that are safe to shoot me with?" Chris gestured with a hand, the other hanging on. "I'd imagine that it would fire baseball sized rounds. Plus, you would have perfect aim. You could probably write your name on my back. Or initials, at least. Thanks again for giving me a shot in there. I know if you turned on all your sensors, you'd probably know exactly where I was the whole time."

 

* * *

"Be glad I didn't have a marker back there," the mech chuckled as he stepped off the lift. "You'd be covered in welts by now. Especially for that stunt you pulled with the bricks? You're gettin' one for that."

The wash wasn't an especially private spot, but it was secluded and only way you'd see who was doing what in there was if you were standing in front of the space, which was set off to the side on one of the far ends of the motor pool and tucked around a small corner. It had an automatic wash setting where you could park the squad car or MRAV or whatever and let the sprayers move along the body on a track, or you could pick out one of the spray nozzles from the wall and do it by hand.

Chris was to do it by hand. Preferably with  _both_  hands.

Hawker set Chris down, this time with his giant fingers under his rear to give it a good squeeze. <Keep your pants on. I'm not in the mood to get caught,> he ordered.

The wash was not tall enough for him to walk into; it was designed for motor vehicles. So he ducked in and took a seat on the floor with his back to the wall. One leg stretched out, hands behind his head, smile on his lips.

"Channel your inner high school cheerleader at a car wash fundraiser," he snorted. "There's a big tip waiting for you." <Literally.>

 

* * *

He snerked at the idea of a big tip. Yeah, the mech would know all about that. Chris is looking forward to seeing that again. And again!

<Thankfully, the motor pool is warm year-round. If it was summer I could wear just short-shorts and spend hours getting you nice and clean.>

The bay had numerous tools to work with; from high-powered pressure washers, down to scrub brushes. After getting his behind goosed, which he couldn't help by make an adorable squeak from, he got a bucket of soapy water, hand brushes and sponges. He'd leave the pressure washer for later. It wasn't like he'd dumped enough rounds that the mech is dripping paint. "I"m going to start up at the bottom and work my way up."

<Which means I get to start between your legs, and finish with that handsome mug of yours.> After all, he should get to make the big bot wait needily. He was already feeling the growing stiffness in his pants.

A lounging Hawker is.. is just.. <I.. I.. > The way the machine looked with it's hands back like that! Confident. Amused. HUNGRY! <DAMN! I wish you could flop it out and blast a load on me right now!>

The sweaty greenhorn took his time walking around the boot, before he finally stood at the inside of the knee. Hawker looked like an olympic strong man. One made of metal, but if he were flesh the view Chris had would be of a prime beefcake. THe young pilot savored the vision, parking the bucket inches from that codpiece. One of the paintballs must had hit one of the 'special' seams, as it'd left quite a long drip down. he picked up the brush and went to work.

Warm hands, wet and slippery, slide over the heavy metallic armor. The brush's bristled flicked and swirled, pressing into the grooves. He grunted with effort, the water base paint foaming up with orange bubbles. He picked up the hose, it hung from an on the ceiling, just like in a self-service car wash.

Water sprayed all over the groin plate, removing the orange with a constant pressure. Chris smirked as he worked it up and down, up and down, stroking with the rinse. He held a hand out, fingers tracing up the inner thigh, feeling along the mechanical leg muscles, then he dunked the brush and attacked the spots of remaining orange again, working the brush in deliberately long and heavy strokes.

To say he was feeling the robot up is an understatement.

The second rinse though, actually got the the orange off. Dropping the tools in the bucket, he looped the hose over his shoulder and took the bucket in hand. The exposed mechanised muscles between Hawker's legs are plenty climbable. Normally covered with armor, in this position they showed off just part of what made the big bot move. Hands and feet, little touches as the pilot clambered up. He stopped and set the bucket down, getting up on his toes as he rubbed at a spot on the robot's abdominals.

The soapy water trickled down between the abs, flowing down where a belly button would be. He rested his right hand on the strong muscles, grunting as he worked off the paint.

"When I'm done here, pick me up so I can clean off that pretty face of yours, huh?" he teased.

 

* * *

 

_"I'd imagine that it would fire baseball sized rounds. Plus, you would have perfect aim. You could probably write your name on my back. Or initials, at least."_

"100% accuracy at distances under 200 yards under simulation conditions; 94-98% for anything up to a quarter mile away. Out on the street, the numbers are a few points less. I don't calculate for wind, humidity, or any of that fancier stuff, otherwise I'd be even more accurate."

_"Thanks again for giving me a shot in there. I know if you turned on all your sensors, you'd probably know exactly where I was the whole time."_

A little smile creased at the corner of his optic. "It was a meatspace simulation. Can only account for so many orders of complexity in an artificial environment like that, so I dumbed myself down accordingly. What you'll come to find out about me is that I always play fair, kid." Hawker gave his pilot a wink. "Except when I don't."

\---

_< Which means I get to start between your legs, and finish with that handsome mug of yours.>_

"Whatever gets the job done," he said with wry amusement. Chris still had the collar on, and Hawker could feel the arousal beginning to build in that little body of his. His bright brown eyes took in the sight before him, though - the built landscape of Hawker's metal body - and the mech saw with his own optics that wonderful familiar sight of tenting in his pants. Short shorts would have been nice - or the jock strap, even, with the way it framed that delicious ass. But another image came to mind: Chris in his pilot suit, skin-tight and expertly tailored, unable to hide his arousal in even that most industrial of garments. Hawker imagined rubbing his thumb over that little bulge as Chris could do nothing but writhe in ecstasy until he exploded inside the suit, with the mech's name on his lips...

_< DAMN! I wish you could flop it out and blast a load on me right now!>_

His optics flashed a brighter yellow. <Don't tempt me.>

The rest was one of the hardest tests of his patience he'd had in recent memory, but holding back his building heat would be well worth the wait. When Chris took up position between his massive thighs, Hawker wanted nothing more than to grab his soft-haired head and shove it hard against his crotch to make him lick him clean instead.

As soon as his small hands, now wet and slick with soap, touched him, Hawker couldn't help 'settling' further into his sitting posture by slightly adjusting the angle of his pelvic block. He rolled that hard, bulging crotch up into Chris's soapy just enough for the pilot to notice - but not enough for the security camera to pick up.

<Mm.>

He did it again - a slightly more obvious buck - when the heavy spray of the power washer hit him. The sensation was fan-fucking-tastic, and Hawker's bedroom eyes were beginning to turn into something a little more sinister.

<I wish I could feel that directly on my cock. Probably blow a load powerful enough to throw you against the wall.>

Chris continued his sensual scrub-down. He wasn't using just his arms, but the whole of his still-marbled body. The mech could feel his legs ache with fatigue over their connection, could feel the smarting of the bites that were only just beginning to fade from blue to bright purple.  _He'd look cute with a bloody nose and a black eye,_  he idly decided. Too bad his hands were big enough to cave in his skull instead.

Chris climbing him was an erotically  _precious_  sight, though. A landscape of a body for sure, with the kid the intrepid explorer. A joke about mountain climbing and altitude sickness came to him and he chuckled to himself.

He hadn't had this much attention paid to his abdominal armor in a long while. Little fingers deftly cleaned out the seams between the intricately overlaid armor lames, taking little spots of dust and oil along with the obnoxiously colored paint. Hawker thought about turning this into a weekly routine. Surely, his subordinate wouldn't deny him.  _Not that he could!_

_"When I'm done here, pick me up so I can clean off that pretty face of yours, huh?"_

Another little thrust that threatened Chris' balance. Hands still behind his head as he tilted his head to the side. <Only if I get to make a mess of yours later.> Only then did he offer his hand, palm up and ready to receive a very fuckable little rear.

 

* * *

 

<Don't think water and your office would work out well. Maybe late some night, you could sit with your back to the doorway of the wash ;and I'll get your dick soapy and hose it down. If you think we could get away with it.> The kid did enjoy doing naughty things just out of sight. Probably tied in with how he liked sporting the signs of the mech's lust on his smooth skin.

He wore his combat boots. They did a good job of keeping his feet dry, but soapy water and a bucking mech didn't make for great traction. He didn't sit down, that perky butt of his landed into the unyielding titanium palm. "Ow.." he grumbled. <Fuck, practically spanked _myself!_ > From that seated position he picked up the bucket and make sure to run the hose over those abdominals.

"Okay, take me up."

The big face loomed, then he is brought up to meet it. This close he could talk out loud and its likely no one could overhear.

"Please hold your eye still. Don't blink. I'll be gentle."

He stayed steady, his knees brushing the mech's chin. He dunked the sponge in the bucket, carefully wiping over the machine's optics first, carefully spraying down the eye with a mist, then using the sponge again. The machine didn't have an organic's sensitivities, but that didn't stop the fact that this IS Hawker's eye.

Gentle hands, worked the sponge over the optics a final time. He used the flesh of his thumb to get the last little flecks of orange off the glowing yellow surface. "Okay, close your eyelid." He worked again, dealing with the soft 'skin' of the mech. His hands are warm. Caring. THe feeling over the link with him this close is just of a genuine desire to care for the large machine. He rinsed again. "Okay, blink a few times. Ya good?"

"Allright, I need to brush your teeth. Open wide and say AAAAHHH!"

This.. Chris had been looking forward to. He wished he could pull off his shirt and CRAWL in. He thoroughly hoses off the brush he had, ensuring the bristles were free of suds. "Don't wanna wash your mouth out with soap."

<Despite the fact that we've been thinking dirty enough stuff. If this takes much longer you'd pin me down and grind until we got off.>

He ran the brush over every tooth, scrubbing along the shining denta. He worked the brush along the roof of the mech's mouth, down around the area under the tongue, over the molars, around the gums and over the wiggling surface of the tongue itself. When he is satisfied with the oral care, he hosed out the mouth, laughing as Hawker gargled.

It'd be a hell of a way to spend a Sunday, washing the big mech. There's only one part he wanted to wax though.

"Ya good and clean now? Am I done for th' day?" If the bot didn't take him into his office for a rousing 'discussion', the pilot was going to be mighty sad.

 

* * *

 

This was hilarous! And, if he permitted himself to be honest, endearing. The kid genuinely cared, and it showed in the detail he paid mind to as he washed the clear surface of his optic. The vital moving parts were located behind the almond-shaped polymer pane, so he wasn't so sensitive as a human was regarding the sight organs.

Chris' servile inclinations... inspired something else in him. A gentler kind of domination, maybe. Not a month went by where the big mech wasn't maintenanced by a bunch of techs, but this was intimate. Doting. The kid was in  _service_  to his giant machine captain. And as a captain, it was Hawker's inclination to take charge, desire deference, and apparently, relish in the kinder moments of his little human pilot's expressions of devotion. Interesting how even now, the mech felt the thrill of ownership.

He blinked, pleased at Chris' job well done.

_< If this takes much longer you'd pin me down and grind until we got off.>_

Hawker smirked and projected an image of him suspended above the floor like he were doing pushups. Except instead of pushups... Chris was pinned underneath his huge, thick length as the mech thrust down and forward, sliding in and out of the kid's tiny embrace.

<I'd be fine with this.>

He opened his mouth wide, letting his tongue slide across his denta in a lewd display of oral fixation. It really was too bad he couldn't fit Chris in there, toss him around on the mass of his tongue, pin him to the roof of his mouth, gently crush him between his teeth...

That's it. Hawker decided that today was the day he'd finally try eating his goddamn pilot.

The oral detailing job was thrilling and altogether more pleasurable than he was expecting. Every time Chris stuck his arm inside up to the elbow, the mech would close his lips around the limb and give a long, tantalizing lick before letting him go again, optics fixed on Chris' face to watch his reaction.

At last, he opened wide once again to let the kid fill his mouth with clean water. It sloshed around under his tongue, and he did a bit of gargling for show more than anything before spitting it out. "Ah."

_"Ya good and clean now? Am I done for th' day?"_

As much as they both wanted nothing more than to fuck and be fucked red and raw, it really was his job as superior officer, owner, and sadist to make the kid do a few things that he did not actually want to do. Hawker pretended to hum and haw for a moment before setting Chris down again on the floor and returning his hands to where they'd been behind his head.

"You missed my feet, greenhorn. The crash room's pretty filthy. I'd rather not drag the outdoors into my office if I can avoid it." <Careful... better do a good job or I'll make you lick 'em clean,> he laughed over their connection.

 

* * *

 

The truth was, none of the other techs would have risked an arm to brush Hawker's teeth. The mech probably wouldn't have let them either. Chris felt pride at the sight of his Boss looking clean and proper. And he had a raging boner no thanks to how it'd felt! It had been amazing, to be allowed so close and explore that huge mouth. When he'd made eye contact with the large mech, hole his arm got sucked on..

..fuck..

Chris didn't know he wanted to be eaten by his superior until that moment.

"Aye Sir. Get the gunk out of your treads." The kid made his way over to the end of those legs and.. he whistled. "What'd you step  _IN_? Everything?"

When He'd walked away, he'd made sure to walk on his toes, ensuring that his butt danced noticeably as he'd moved. The rookie adjusted the pressure on the hose.

"Hope you aren't ticklish!" Fuck, Hawker is a sexy man. He could almost imagine that their size difference was a trick of perspective from this angle. His captain had a smirk and biceps. Big fucking guns! Chris shouldered the wand of the pressure washer and blasted the water stream at the left boot.

Standing right infront of where he'd been aiming, the back blast knocked grime onto his shirt, pants and face. "Ack! Psssbpt!" He lifted up his shirt, wiping off his face and spitting. "Pthbpt! UGH!" His smooth stomach had a lovely marbling of blues and greens and red. Lesson learned, he fired at an angle. Big globs of mud and debris fell from the complicated design of the boots. As Hawker flexed his 'toes' the treads moved and revealed more junk for the greenhorn to remove. After five minutes he'd finished rinsing. He went looking and found himself a brush on a stick, almost a pushbroom really. With his aching arms, he dunked and scrubbed. And dunked and scrubbed. Another ten before he finished with that, and the rinse took even longer!

Plunking the brush into the soapy bucket, he crouched down into a squat. He rubbed over his arms, hands opening and closing mechanically. The AI could feet the ache in it's pilot, the sensation of heavy fatigue and the chill from the cold water. The constant abused, the continuous exercise is making the kid burn down. He stayed in that position until a friendly reminder from on high got him pushing on his knees to get back up. Gritting his teeth, he went about the business of cleaning the Boss's other foot.

<I'm going to die of exhaustion!>

At least he wasn't pushing out the front of his pants anymore.

* * *

 

While Chris' arousal dissipated as he went about the much messier task of hosing down the mech's boots, Hawker's did not. Making the human do something unpleasant and having him do it without hesitation? It fueled his fission-powered heat just fine. Chris would be rewarded handsomely for his labor in due time, even though he was making him wait a few extra minutes for it.

_"Hope you aren't ticklish!"_

Hawker chuckled, splaying the bottom of his foot open to reveal a shapely tread pattern. Truthfully, he hadn't had them cleaned out in probably two months. It was about time.

Sensation in his feet was dull compared to his hands, but this wasn't about tactility for him so much as it was about  _watching_  his good little pilot, dwarfed by those enormous stompers, scrub away in spite of his fatigue. It was about making him suffer just a tiny bit, and reinforcing their deliciously fucked up relationship.

When Chris was hit with the dirty water, Hawker couldn't suppress a bark of laughter. The mech wanted to tell him to just take the shirt off entirely, but the splotchy rainbows decorating his smooth, tight skin made him remember the surveillance camera and he stayed silent.

Chris was hurting again soon enough, and for real. He was such a good sport about it!

"Just a little more, kid." <Be good for me.>

_< I'm going to die of exhaustion!>_

Hawker cocked a bemused brow at him. <Not until I give you permission, I hope,> he thought wryly.

But part of being a functional sadist was knowing when to let up, so as soon as Chris was done hosing down his right boot, he gently reminded him to put the put his supplies away in an orderly fashion as the mech squeezed unceremoniously outside, finally able to stand.

He would have preferred a few minutes with the blowers as well, but what was a little water? His giant black frame shimmered with moisture and he dripped onto the floor. He snatched up a microfiber cloth from a basket just outside the door - barely the size of a cocktail napkin to him - to at least dry off his face. When he was done he tossed it back where he'd gotten it, and Chris was standing, looking a little worse for wear, beside him.

"I have to carry you again, don't I?" There was a wink on his voice, and he reached down for him. It took all he had not to broadcast what he had in mind across their connection; Hawker wanted to savor the surprise.

\---

When they returned, now behind closed doors and without surveillance, Hawker deposited the human down onto his desk again and wasted no time covering his face with a pair of forceful lips that pushed him onto his back. With a pleased groan he engaged those hidden seams and let his arousal spring out, stiff and just as huge as the rest of him.

"Hope you're not too tired to have a little fun..."

* * *

 

Chris needed to get the heck out of the way as hawker scooted out. The open space in the wash bay is perhaps 12 feet tall, but the ceiling is a mess of hoses, automatic brushes and sprayers. He got to see Hawker on his knees, at least for a moment. Most of that great armored black shape had a sheen of wetness to it. Chris hadn't seen the HLX-9 wet yet, and the dark armor had a depth to its finish he hadn't noticed before. He'd never even seen the robot outside, for that matter. Hawker looked good.

He didn't protest when the hand that held him squeezed a little too tightly, he rested his arm over the thumb as it compressed him to the palm. Arms that'd spent the morning punching and the afternoon washing just wanted to flop where they leay, so he felt delightfully  _pliable_.

 


	11. Dinner Date *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris gets vored by the mech and fucked six ways from Sunday.

Hawker's office. THe massive door moved on it's own power, having opened on their approach and began closing behind those freshly cleaned boots. The rookie didn't even have time to pull off his damp shit before he'd been smooched! Bowled over, he did honestly try to kiss back but he wasn't sure where the lips started and ended! All he could see and feel is the potent kiss. He tiredly rubbed the handsome face, feeling stunend and overwhelmed.

_"Hope you're not too tired to have a little fun..."_

He sure moved quick now, having seeing his Captain's fat shaft; three feet of metallic alloy that's ready to break through reinforced concrete! Shirt off, and oh wow! As he rapidly worked at the shoelaces on his boots, the marks from the previous day lay gloriously on his bare skin. The teeth marks on his neck and arm particularly vivita. His back and face were nearly blank right now. The arm that had been chewed did have a pretty, tye-dyed look to the skin.

Kick, kick; the boots dropped down wetly. Socks peel off and those toes wiggle in their newfound freedom. THe sweatpants and jockstrap follow. Oh, oh yes. The cute little human erection hard on his belly, balls nicely seated at the base. His leg bored the dark bite mark of his owner, his superior. "Too tired for fun? I hope you don't ever work me that hard! Hmmm. Of course, that'd just mean you rub up against me until you finished." He smirked, legs apart as he sprawled on the desk.

<I do have a medical exam tomorrow at 0900. So what you do is gonna get recorded for posterity.> His cute face screwed up in a masochistic smile. Putting his arms behind his head, he mimicked the position of the big man from earlier. He needed bigger muscles to make it the position look good. Right now he is just cute and damaged.

"I want a meal from you big bot. I want you all over and in me. Leave some marks and get us off already!" His dick jumped, and he licked over his lips as he alternated looking at the broad schlong and the greedy look on the robot's face.

 

* * *

 

_"Of course, that'd just mean you rub up against me until you finished."_

"I'd be more than happy to finish all over you no matter  _what_  state you were in." He let the dubiousness of those words sink in, grinning wickedly. He imagined somehow being able to give the kid his morning wake-up call with an unnanounced smear of pre to the face.

_< I do have a medical exam tomorrow at 0900. So what you do is gonna get recorded for posterity.>_

Hawker slowly rubbed his cockhead against the edge of the desk as his optics raked over his pilot's handsome little body. Hands behind his head, legs out, he even had the smug look on his face. But with those bruises and that collar, it was no question as to who was in charge.

"We wouldn't want to give Colburn a heart attack," he chuckled. "Contrary to popular belief, I do like a  _few_  people around here."

The mech reached down to stroke himself as he leaned in to graze his teeth across Chris' flat belly, rumbling when the kid instinctively drew in a breath. Tongue followed, and he trailed slowly south until his lips found that little cock again. He opened wide, taking  _everything_  into his great mouth: shaft, balls, thighs. Licking, sucking, savoring. Chris' small, breathy noises made him harder. And deep inside of him, that secret probe warmed in anticipation.

But he didn't linger there for long. A few measured strokes and he left to nibble and drag his lips down across each leg, up and down each arm, taking each limb into his mouth and letting the...  _foretaste_  build for the both of them.

"Turn over," he ordered quietly. When Chris did as told, Hawker continued along his backside, giving a little extra attention to that perky little ass. He noticed that the skin there was relatively free of marks, and this was unacceptable to him. He bit down, and bit down hard. His cock jumped at Chris' reaction, and he fisted himself faster. "Mmh..."  _That_  one he knew he wanted blue - wanted Chris to feel it every time he sat down for the next week. He rewarded his good little pet with a tongue between the ass cheeks, lubing him up from balls to tailbone, and lapping a few times at his quivering hole.

<I'll train you to take my tongue soon enough. But for now...> He drew back and sat down in the chair, popping his hatches.  _Pfssst chakchakchak!_  <You're going on an adventure.> "Collar off, greenhorn. Get in."

 

* * *

 

Chris imagined Hawker pushing that monster under his sheets as he slept. Snuggling up to the warm metallic girth, before the mech woke him up to deal with that morning ~~wood~~ steel, obscenely dripping pre onto his face.

_"Contrary to popular belief, I do like a few people around here."_

"What?" came his humerous rebuttal, a laugh coming out with his amusement. "Kole, Colburn, Preston? I'm not sure you like me yet." he teased.

Any doubts he had, even comical ones, went away as the handsome machine pleased him in a way no one else could. Chris tastes  **GOOD**. He'd been hard and soft multiple times, so his sweet precum had added to the flavors of sweat and his natural musk. And more of the sweet natural sweetness would come out to dot little highlights of flavor. He squirmed and shuddered, hands pressing on the mech's nose, he whined happily. Even when being pleasured, he had no control.

His body slowly got washed clean by the mech, soon there wasn't an inch of his flesh that hadn't been touch by those lips; the immense teeth had threatened and snapped at him here and there. As he collected more bruises and carried old ones, the tapestry of pain he carried meant less places for a new additions. Rolling over, he pushed his rear upward and spread his legs.

Like a white peach, those twin cheeks stood perky and perfect, his balls just visible below. His whimper turned into a true pained cry, his hands balling into fists and he pounded them to the desk. Fresh pain rolled over the connection like thunder. The boy sweat a sheen from that, his skin glistening in the lights of the office. He left a drop of lubricant on the desk, groaning with pleasure as the robot slathered up and down between his legs.

<Don't tease about that Sir! You put that tongue between my cheeks until I can take it!> But he's not in control, is he?

Chris wasn't cleared for interfacing yet. He needed to wait for medical to clear him for service.

Hawker's orders had him crushing the off switch as he scrambled to his feet. The collar got left on the desk as he moved with the energy of his raging arousal. The rookie pilot crossed the distance in moments, hitting the cushions of the piloting chair with a regretful howl! "FUCK! Did you really have to chomp my ass? Ow fuck fuck.."

Feet in position, he dropped his hands in position and pressed the button to engage their interface.

No suit. No shoes. Nothing at all, his naked flesh housed by Hawker's steel. The restrains curled around him and pressed on the raw bruises, washing him with the pain anew. It hurt. It felt amazing. He wanted to jerk off, to please his bobbing arousal. But his arms were locked down firm. He felt the helmet surround his head and lock up tight, the interface seating securely.

Nude in the stomach of Big Nine. Then his mind swam as they joined.

 

* * *

 

The feeling of bare flesh against his insides was almost more than he could handle. Hawker engaged the restraints, feeling them curl around Chris' aching, beaten body, holding him tight in a strange iron grip. The mech's neural interface cradled his pilot's head, slithered across his scalp before securing such precious cargo.

"Trust me, this won't be like our previous interfaces. It'll only hurt a little..." Those were his last spoken words as the hatches closed, leaving Chris in a dim belly dotted with a rainbow of LED status lights. With that, the plug slid in, seated, and that familiar haze rushed to meet them.

\---

They were back where they'd just been: Chris on Hawker's desk, and the machine giant standing before him, shaft straining. If the human had blinked, he might've missed it; wondered if he hadn't imagined their interface at all. Nothing seemed different or out of the ordinary, and the only clue that they were, in fact, linked was the undeniable mingling of each others' minds.

"Now where was I?" Hawker's neurospace self said, diving back in to continue where he'd left off. He could taste Chris here - and  _fuck_  was it addicting! Sweet like coolant, tangy like solvent, musky like oil... but all organic. All warm and fleshy and full of living, pumping blood. He groaned with pleasure. "If only I could tie you to a popsicle stick and suck on you all day long..."

His systems rumbled fiercely when his mouth made contact again with Chris' body. His mouth was busy, and he didn't want to interrupt, so: <You will come twice this time. Once now, and once again later,> he firmly impressed on the squirmy, excitable little thing underneath him. <How long it takes you to get hard again doesn't matter to me, though don't be surprised if things are different here.>

He grabbed Chris' thighs with a surprising roughness, drawing them up and apart to fully expose him. He stared hungrily for a moment before lapping and sucking on everything he had from prick to ass and rumbling his lecherous enjoyment. He drew circles around the kid's asshole with his immense tongue, before pressing the tip of it to the opening and exerting pressure against that tight muscle.

<What's the biggest cock you've taken? How stretched open was my little pilot?>

 

* * *

 

The disorientation lasted longer than he'd expected. Normally he'd be seeing with Hawker's eyes, becoming the 15 foot machine. Instead, they stayed separate and a world built around them. It felt just like it moments ago. The cool desk on his back. Impossibly strong hands that pulled his thighs apart.

Here the connection flowed without hindrance. Hawker could taste, he could pull on his pilot's knowledge of flavors. Things like salt, the tang of bitterness, tongue feel; even the way the boy's skin felt against his gums.

When Chris spoke, he'd had trouble making things throughs, the robot surrounded with pleasure that he didn't know could exist. He bordered on popping right now, his shaft dancing and jumping with need, spitting out the little dollops of natural lubricant. Everything felt real, and he easily forgot he is trapped within the form of his lecherous Captain.

"Twice? Oh gods Hawker! I'm not going to be able to move after this." He has the distinct line between his perky and bitten rear; and the muscled flowing line of a shapely thigh. Each cheek pushed equally apart as the unstoppable oral muscle shouldered his butt open, pressing at that pucker. He had a clean, musky flavor. THe taste of a well maintained, yet exercised young man. The flavor that should arouse the need of a domineering male to penetrate and claim the pilot as his own.

_"What's the biggest cock you've taken? How stretched open was my little pilot?"_

\----  
Suddenly, Chris's mind reached back to the academy. He'd had dalliances as a teenager, but that'd been with other guys his age. Blowjobs, mutual fingering. But he'd been sweet on anther guy who had been in training with him. Another scab. Andrew. THe young pilots had spent time eyeing each other in the showers. Touching. Kisses. They'd linked up and played in neurospace, experimenting with fantasy. Andrew was less hung then Chris but thicker. 6 by 2. That'd been the only other person to repeated take the pilot. They'd gotten each other through the school. Andrew had gone off to the warm sunny west coast, to enjoy the California sun as a pilot on the sunny beaches. He wanted Chris to come with him, but the stubborn Chicago native wanted to try and help his home city.  
\----

"N-nothing like you've got." He admitted, trying to buck his hips to get more traction against his anal cleft. But it is impossible, Hawker held him firmer then he could dream. In the cockpit his legs tensed and shook, fighting futilely against the restrains. "Even your smallest finger is bigger then anything that's ever been in me. You'll be deeper, stretch me wider then anyone. I want you to mold me." he smirks, "Make me fit around you!"

 

* * *

 

_"Oh gods Hawker! I'm not going to be able to move after this."_

A private thought:  _That sounds enticing too..._

If Chris was needy before, then this was a whole new level. His every thwarted thrust, his every twitch and tingle, was punctuated by a synesthesic dance of color, smell, taste, and sound. Hawker could feel the rush of sex hormones, the epinephrine and endorphin, the rush of beating blood to his hot, reddened prick. He could almost feel his own tongue on that shaft, another reverberating effect of Infinite Mirror.

He relived the flicker of memories alongside his human - he permitted himself to imagine both Chris and Andrew between his legs and betting for his massive load - and found them erotic and endearing. How cute, two evenly-matched little bodies fucking each other in a soft bed? His Chris, whimpering and sighing, cock spurting its globs in miniature when he couldn't take any more.

"Mmph... mmyeah......"

He went back to that hole though. Enticed by its amazing smallness. Hawker wanted to bury himself in there somehow. Use the kid as a cocksleeve. Fuck him so hard he could  _taste_  it. The mech pushed, and eventually Chris' body yielded deliciously to his invading tongue. Where he wasn't held in Hawker's vice grip, Chris writhed.

In the chair outside he reached for himself and stroked.

He buried himself another few inches, the girth of his tongue here several inches in diameter. But it would only hurt if Chris either chose for it to, or if he forgot that he was in neurospace.

<God you taste so fucking good.> Chris was stretched around him, muscles struggling to push him out, but he held firm. Inside the kid was impossibly tight, pillowy soft, and  _hot_. Spectacularly hot.  <I can taste your heartbeat...> Those little pairs of drumbeats ran quick now, he could feel them.

Another inch, another squirm.

 

 

* * *

 

Chris didn't know for sure if Andrew would have share his submission to Hawker, but he knew his previous partner would have enjoyed that monstrous metal dick. They'd have hugged it between them, rode it like a hose, kissed the tip and bathed in the absurd output the mech produced. Mmmpf. A harem for Hawker.

Neurospace allowed for the impossible. Chris wanted to be filled by the domineering AI. He needed that kind of control and safety. He wanted to know that the most dangerous thing watched out for him. If if that force hurt him a little in the process, well, that's just icing on the cake. His flat stomach became rounded, little waves of motion appearing as the tongue penetrated his depths.

That pink ring stretched beyond what should be possible! More and more of that gloriously writhing muscle filled his dusky tunnel. The smell, the flavor! The delicious sensation of the tight body, unsure and eager to be claimed by the more powerful male. In his mind, the smirking face of the mech kept his hands from allowing him to self-pleasure. But it is the restraints in the forgotten cockpit that bound his arms, his shaft twitching, so achingly hard that it lifted off his stomach and bobbed in the air.

_< I can taste your heartbeat...>_

He could feel it. The tongue have reached an impossible depth, the robot casually invading his fragile organic form, the tongue slathering it's saliva over his frantic, beating heart.

"NNNGH!" The feelings overwhelmed him and he fell into a hazy lust of an orgasam! He splattered the six cumshots onto his stomach, each one a thigh-clenching volley that made his balls ache. In neurospace..

He poured out his seed into the mouth of the mighty machine! He rolled his hips, slipping his length the slight inches that he could when bound by those hands. His inner muscles rippled, squeezing and milking along the point where he'd been turned into Hawker's puppet. With a deep exhales he sagged in the perverse embrace.

Still hard, still filled. He could sense the appetite of his Captain behind him. He want more, so much more from his pilot. "I'm.. I'm ready Sir." Chris wasn't sure what he is quite ready for, but he knew that he needed to admit it. He knew the big bot wanted him to admit his need. "Please!"

 

* * *

 

Hawker worked himself in to the teeth, curling the end of his tongue upward in a 'come hither' motion. After a few moments of agonizing bliss, he withdrew and plunged back in.

The mech was much more aware of both worlds than the human could ever be. If Chris' aptitude for neurospace meant that he could dictate the terms of their connection unilaterally, then Hawker's was that he was designed to be immersed in and conscious of both. When his trapped little pilot came inside of him, spurting all over himself, he could feel that. He could feel the taut tendons, the muscles gone rigid, the heaving, labored breaths, the tremulous arching against the restraints and seatback.

And when Chris came in neurospace, he felt that too. The little jets of thick, warm cum splashed against his palate. His puckered hole squeezed tight, almost shivering. Velvet insides trembled and heartbeat hastened.

Outside, the mech in the chair bucked into his own hand and rumbled fiercely, but he was patient when he wanted to be. For now he was going to edge - he wanted to save all of that pent-up arousal for the grander finale.

In the midscape, Hawker slowly withdrew his tongue, savoring the taste of the kid's sweet, musky load. Salty. Like blood, like sweat, like tears: some of his favorite things. His human fell back against the desk like a rag doll, heaving deep, open-mouthed breaths. His own dainty pink tongue practically lolling out. But expectation was thick in the air - even without his previous warning of two orgasms, the metal giant exuded it like a pheromone.

_"I'm... I'm ready Sir."_

With Chris' taste still on his lips, he kissed him deeply, drew his thumb down that delicate jawline.

<Good boy.>

Then, things started to change. It would he hard to tell at first, but it would soon be apparent to Chris that Hawker was steadily growing. The mech's mouth on his would seem to cover more and more of his face, that his fingers splayed along the kid's shoulder were now two to its width instead of four, that his nose suddenly pressed into his hair rather than his cheek.

Did it stop? Hawker knew that it did, at which point he pulled his now 3-foot face away from Chris, optics intense in their golden glow. "Good boy," he repeated, his mouth twisted into a wide smirk as he hunched over his prey. The human was now barely taller than his hand from heel to fingertip, and the mech couldn't help but imagine all sorts of horrible things he could do to a human body at this size.

If Chris wanted to see him on his knees again, he was getting the opportunity now. Hawker was far too massive to stand in here, but that was no matter. He planned on getting comfortable for this anyways.

"How's the view from all the way down there?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow, the removal of the tongue really hit home how deep the big man had been. It pulled out and out and out! When the devious, talented tip finally withdrew from his well-stretched ring, the pilot could feel air inside him. His depts were visable, the overworked boybutt winked as it struggled to close again.

Chris's vision had waves and stars as he ran from the high of getting off to the warm afterglow and kisses from his lover. Those lips puckered up, their touch going from just below his nose down to the bottom of his chin. Lover is a good word for how he felt about Hawker. They shared interests, spent time with each other well, and seems to fill out each other's perversions. He didn't even notice the growth at first.

The hand on his back increased its weight. THe tongue filled his mouth, expanding and pressing his cheeks outward, delving into his throat and pulling out past his lips. It was only when the lips of his boss pushed over his eyebrows that he realised something sneaky had been going on.

When he'd been washing the boots of his kinky tormentor, he could have believed that their size difference is a trick of the eyes. He could have gotten that kind of view by laying his head at the boots of someone his own size. There is no such possibility now, Hawker had grown to a size that dwarfed buildings. One hand covered him like a blanket, the other could touch the ceiling with ease. Hawker grew until he filled a good chuck of the space in the office.

The mech had to be kneeling to fit! Even then the now six foot phallus bobbed and swung in the air over home. Chris could lay on it, his feet against the robot's hips and his head wouldn't even reach the end! He probably could stick his arm down the cumsilt and feel the load coming up before it blasted him across the desk! He struggled to rises, but even the counterbalanced dead weight of that hand is too much for his exhausted body.

Prey. He saw a hungry reflected int hat golden gaze. The smirk revealing the gleam of teeth, each tooth bigger then his hands.

The damage Hawker could do now. The differences before had been laughable. But now he felt helpless. Hawker had become a god, able to destroy him with a whim or cripple him with the simplest gesture. Pain would come, whether he was ready or not.

_"How's the view from all the way down there?"_

THe voice boomed from on high, it is all so appropriate. Chris didn't fight the alterations, he permitted himself to be tiny and insignificant because of how good it felt.

The boss in control.

"Damn fine!" he shouted, feeling the need to call up. His legs were a touch shorter then Hawkers fingers. The hand on him could turn into a fist that could easily encompass his body, with the thumb pressing up under his neck. "So, you sexy giant, what more surprises do you have for your happy pilot?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris' brows shot up when he realized just how big Hawker had become, and a look of pleasant surprise crossed his face. The human was beaming with excitement at this new development - all the better for him. It seemed to the now-massive mech that there was something truly special about Chris letting something as big and imposing as an HLX-9 violate him, letting himself be squeezed like putty in such powerful hands.

_"So, you sexy giant, what more surprises do you have for your happy pilot?"_

Hawker smiled at the ego-stroking, matching it with a little neurospace stroking of his own. His hand slid up and down his battering ram of a cock, smearing a dribble of lubricant along his gunmetal length. Some of it dripped onto the floor in a viscous glob.

"Nothing you hadn't thought of first, kiddo."

His free hand grasped Chris like a toy, turning him over so that he laid face up in his open palm. The mech found a spot on the ground to sit against the wall, much like he'd done while his dutiful little pilot had soaped up his hard frame. He brought Chris up to his face, unable to suppress that hungry grin. He licked his lips, and the unspoken feeling they shared across their link changed suddenly - to a lower, more ominous note, or a prickling heat as Hawker allowed his mental presence to expand and press against his subordinate's.

He started with the kid's legs, taking them inch by inch into his mouth, sucking the flesh past his teeth and rubbing his tongue all over those firm calves. Chris' taste was exquisite; the feel of those little limbs squirming and moving around the inside of his hot, wet mouth was going to drive him wild. Still, he kept the strokes along his huge cock steady - patience.

<You're going to feel so good going down...>

 

 

* * *

 

 

Briefly Chris took in the picture of that moment. He tried to sear it into his memory, wanting to remember it forever. He sat nude in the palm of a hand as big as him. THe colossal robot stroking it's bigger-then-Celn sized fuckpole with tho ether. And just why was it working it's crank with intensity? It is going to eat him. Stuff him down it's gullet.

Consume.  
Digest.

Chris is going to be swallowed. It was all he could do not to join in the stroking when that mouth opened. It'd become a much larger mouth now, defiantly more then big enough to do the job. He could see where in the back the throat lay. That wet surface now had a tunnel. A constrictive tube that'd he'd be inside for a time. The interior of Hawker's mouth is constructed of the same 'skin' as his face. The tongue looked wet, it ripples and smeared slickness on his feet.

Saliva.  
Lubricant for making him slip down.

_< You're going to feel so good going down...>_

Despite have cum minutes before, his dick stood at attention for his Captain. Fuck, had he wanted to do this and now it is really happening. In neurospace, but how amazing it all felt! The teeth just below his knees, preventing him from pulling out.

He did laugh, the sensation on his feet did tickle, and he did a little kick just to show how little he could do to prevent being eaten. SOme primal part of his mind felt fear, not wanting to have that enormous face get it's dinner. He reached forward, sliding his hand into that mouth and stroking over the tongue, getting a sensation for how it felt in every way possible.

Then he uses that we hand to grease up his pole, teasing a finger along the sensitive underside as he bathed in the yellow glow of Hawker's vision. "YOu going to eat me? Swallow me whole? Feel me slide down into your stomach?" THumb and forefinger on his dick now, he looked down as those lips smirked around his legs. All those weird, dark and delicious thoughts about being consumed came to his mind. He spoke..

"Nothing will be left. Just me becoming a small part of you. Making you bigger and stronger. That's the best part of digestion. You don't even have to think about how to utilize me. Just going about your day as I make you greater.."

 

 

* * *

 

Hawker had no intention of digesting him - though it was possible here - but his enthusiasm was compelling. No, it was more than just compelling: it made the killing machine want to do it!

With a sudden rush of tongue and teeth, and a roaring of 6 motors, Chris was thrown back into the mech's gullet past the hips. Hawker's lips clamped down around his slim waist and his tongue roughly forced his thighs apart to coat his absolutely  _tiny_  rod with thick, hot spit. He bit down around that waist, and hard, straining the flesh. So fragile, so many important things under those lean ab muscles. If anything should happen to any of them...

<You'd be grease for my servos,> he mentally growled back. <My body would pick yours apart, piece by piece... you'd be made into oil, or a mere vent of hot, dusty air. Or if you were lucky, maybe you'd become my next load of cum, dripping down the  _wall_. So many ways for good little boys like you to be useful to me. >

He lapped him in up to the chest, feeling his feet at the back of his throat now. Anatomy that he didn't even have outside of neurospace warmed and throbbed as he eagerly awaited that feeling of intense fullness, of constriction around a small and helpless morsel of prey. Tongue lifted Chris' ass up until his hard prick was pressed against the roof of his mouth. Slurping and slicking and groaning.

God, the taste. The sensation of firm, living flesh filling his maw...

<You've wanted this for a while, haven't you, you filthy little scab? Getting fucked by your boss wasn't enough, getting abused wasn't enough... you need complete and utter surrender, don't you? You crave to be put in your place. Well guess what, kid, your place is  _inside me_. >

 

* * *

 

The only real regret Chris felt, is that he'd never be able to have the horizontal bite marks up and down his body. Knowing that the engine of destruction would happily convert him into nothing? That idea just had him painfully throbbing!

His toes pressed against the back of Hawker's mouth. The arches of his feet land on the oversized masseter muscles. He could feel the clenching of the jaw as it tightened around his middle. Blasts of air from Hawker's nose whirled around him. smelling the perspiration of the boy, tasting his prey.

Lips sealed around him and Hawker sucked. Not pushing him in with the hand that supported his shoulders and kept him up at that face. No, just pulling him in like a spaghetti noodle. Slurping him inward. < _You'd become my next load of cum, dripping down the_   **wall**. > That huge tongue lifted him, knocking his feet off their perch, toying with his opened rear and pushing his dick over the hot ridges on the ceiling of Hawker's mouth.

Fear mixed with his lust and he decided he wanted to struggle. He wanted to know if anything, anything at all could stop the inevitable. He grinned, the adrenaline pushing through him as he places his hand on the upper lip of his Boss and locked his elbows. Even with his exhaustion, when a guy locks his knees he feel like he can stand forever. With his arms solid, he should be able to keep himself out.

That sense of superiority lasts a few seconds, them the robot smiles. His fingers slide from lips to deet, then he does deeper. His feet skate across the back of the mouth, coming together at the entrance to that throat. He can feel the automatic swallowing, the natural squeezing and pulling stroking over his feet. He's going to go down! He'll be taken in.

_< Well guess what, kid, your place is  **inside me**. >_

He is thankful for the teeth now, they're what's keeping him from being lunch. He flailed, he panicked, the normally cool Celn struggled against the inevitable embrace of the machine that owned him!

"NO! Please.. I .. oh god, I.." he shuddered, the heavy tongue lolled around him, helping him sink just a tiny bit further. His fear is a spice, a flare of sudden flavor that helps make the mech's mouth water. THe sudden rush of silicone salivar ensures Chris can barely even grasp the teeth. His dick PAINFULLY ached, so close to erupting a second time.

There is nothing he could do, absolutely nothing. And he  _loved_  it!

 

* * *

 

There were benefits to being a machine... aside from the obvious. No gag reflex, no need to aspirate like a human. Hawker could keep Chris inside his mouth for as long as he wanted when he was this big, a prisoner in the dark behind the gate of his teeth.

Chris struggled, locking his arms, pushing futilely against the expanse of his lips. <Don't like it anymore, huh?> he goaded, parting his lips into a cruel smile and holding the kid still between his teeth like a cigar. His hand was still propping up his head, but hadn't been doing any pushing; all the manipulation has so far been with his maw. It didn't take much for Chris' strength to give out: just another slurp, and he was in to the armpits.

His arms were still hanging out, so he opened up just enough to tuck them inside, pushing them to his prey's sides.

_"NO! Please.. I .. oh god, I.."_

It was absurd, that fear. The both of them knew that the human was in the safest hands in Chicago. But the possibility of real harm, of death, of gluttonous bloodlust was always there, under the surface. The comfort of safety mingled with that animal dread of one fatal move, one fatal decision, one fatal throe of passion, and it created a potent alchemy of sex and oblivion. This was the line Hawker wanted -  _needed_  - to walk. Fear and authority fueled him just as much as his thorium core. And Chris was letting him do this; he craved to be on the receiving end as much as Hawker craved to administer pain to who would surely become his closest confidant, his staunchest ally, and his best friend.

The Hawker of both worlds could smell, and he knew the smell of fear. It was his favorite human pheromone - it had a special tang that focused his attention and drove him to action faster than any other. His programming reacted almost of its own accord, even. Fission grew hotter, fluids pumped faster, hydraulics strained under anticipatory pressure, and he felt the predatory need to be where the smell was coming from.  _To do something about it._

Outside of neurospace, the machine groaned, tightening his grip around himself and throwing his head back.

<There's no escaping now, kiddo. Your struggle is only making me harder.>

Inside, the 3-story Hawker also threw his head back.  _Now_  he planted a single finger on each of the human's shoulders, giving a slow, firm push as he opened his mouth wide so that Chris could see where he was to end up. The interior of Hawker's mouth was as white as his face with the occasional seam, but here it undulated and shone with dripping saliva like a human's maw. His hypopharynx throbbed, and there was that familiar deep, wet  _click_  of swallowing action.

The mech was close too, but he forced himself to continue edging in both worlds. His 6-foot metal shaft ached, heaving under its immense weight and having demanded release since the fear in Chris' sweat hit his CPUs. Not... yet!

Then just like that, Chris was all the way in, and the mech's teeth came together behind him.

 

* * *

 

As enlarged Hawker tilted his head back, Chris could look down and see him fisting the girthy tool.  _< There's no escaping now, kiddo. Your struggle is only making me harder.>_ <That's all I am.> the rookie realised. A snack and entertainment. Indignant anger welled up in him, everything he'd been through; and Hawker was going slurp him down and turn him into nothing!

Or maybe he'd be held tight in a mechanical stomach. Squeezed and all of his bruises sparking in agony. The gurgle of fluids, the heat of the reactor, the powerful thrum of engines that are Hawker's heartbeat.

Two huge fingers rest on his shoulders. The same ones that'd been on his feet for his exercises the other day. He tries to kick, but his feet already are surrounded and firmly grasped. With the simplest of pushes, he went in. His legs are surrounded by that constricting throat. Before he'd have to make the bend, his body would have needed to fold to be swallowed.

Not now though. The tongue smeared saliva against his back, mashing him to the roof of the mouth, feeling and judging as the morsel is pulled down. Just a few inches at a time. With an audible *CLUMPF* the teeth shut above him. Tiny lines of light shown in from between them. All too soon his waist lodged in the back of the mech's hungry maw.

Chris whimpered. It felt so good. He knew he is headed to the safest place in the world. Hawker would be the only thing ever to hurt him now. The powerful mech would mark him, sculpt him, and ensure his pilot never came to external harm. All it too is the first pull of a swallow, and his compressed shaft spurted. His orgasm flowed through him, he shuddered as all of his energy came out with it and he collapsed.

In the pilot seat he sagged, his shaft spurting again on his stomach. THe sensations of his emotional release plowed into the mech across the connection. Chris didn't guard his emotional state, he wasn't reserved. Hawker got to enjoy every moment of it with his pilot. A shudder pulsed though his exhausted frame and he sagged in the restraints.

In neurospace, His cum smeared onto his stomach and on the white material of the throat. Over a week of intense exhaustive training, THe constant dominance of Hawker. He had nothing left. With a fearful whimper he slumped in place. Deliciously defeated, submitting to the Male that owned him.

 

* * *

 

His prey was a swirling mess of emotions as he slipped down the hatch, pulled by powerful contractions of soft, cybernetic muscle. They reverberated across their shared connection, punctuating the tastes and sounds and sensations of that small helpless body being stuffed down his gullet.

As soon as the kid's hips found themselves clenched tight against the walls of his throat, Hawker could feel the human shudder, could feel the little spurt of salty heat.

"Mmmh." The mech's groan was  _deep_  - earthquake deep - and it surrounded the pilot with a wall of vibrating sound.

_Golp._

And that was it. Sucked down by those powerful contractions. Hawker tilted his face skyward, hand stroking the bulge in his throat as Chris was pushed down that tight, hot, sticky tunnel deep into the mech's machine body. Hawker could feel his every weak movement until eventually, his meal came to rest in the depths of his belly.

The obscene  _fullness_  as Chris fell unceremoniously into that hot, cramped, cage! Hawker rubbed his belly, tapping on the armor plating just above where his prey lay, exhausted, fearful, defeated. The mech didn't have a cockpit here: he decided to have something else.

A wet, slick space; pitch black, dripping. The walls were textured, like a mass of smooth cables. And he also decided to have a few... appendages.

"Mmyeah."

Outside, the mech was bucking, venting harsh air, hulking shaft swollen and twitching and leaking. But still he forced himself to wait. He had one more thing he wanted to subject the kid to, even now.

"Your captain isn't quite done yet," he said, voice surrounding Chris in his stomach. The tiny little morsel was utterly spent, and Hawker could feel that he wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and fall asleep inside of him. "I know you're tired," he continued, gently, authoritatively, almost like he was grooming the kid to endure something unpleasant. "But I still intend on  _fucking you._ "

With that, he guided one of the sleek metal tentacles toward where Chris lay in the puddle of warm stomach fluid, and brushed it's wet tip across his cheek in the dark. The image of his pilot being violated and unable to get off on it - only existing, in that moment, as a hot, tight hole to plow into - built up the heat in his hips. Hawker suddenly wanted that more than anything, and in meatspace, the seat of the pilot's chair parted.

 

* * *

 

The light coming in dimmed. Hot wetness surrounded him. Yet..

it all is so clean! Silicone and cybernetics. The sounds of the mechanical. Hawker.

Nothing is ever over until Hawker says it is. Chris's exhaustion, his surrender. None of it matter to the Deep Field 2. It is in control. Chris accepted the dominance.

The briefest flickers in neurospace from his self-pity.

The bulge of his body expanded the mech's neck, swallowing him down had an intense satisfaction. He'd  _eaten_! Down, down into the chest the boy went. Where a pilot's chair should be waited something else.  
The upper sphincter of the stomach opened just enough for him to dangle down. Legs, hips, chest, shoulders.. then he fell down into the softness below. Around him is liquid. THe floor and walls are the same alabaster skin. THe surface around him ripples as the motors rumble nearby.

He could barely sit up, his head against the smooth wall.

 _"But I still intend on **fucking you**."_  THe words came from above, deeper then normal and rich with intent. He felt something by his face. Many somethings shifted in the liquid below, he knew there are more around him. Tendrils. Tentacles. Probes. As many as were needed. Enough to bind him tight and push one in each end of him. And plenty more waiting and ready, ready to keep the pilot full.

In the soft, pliable padding the pilot's still body shifted. Whirring mechanisms spread his thighs, raising him just enough. His little rosebud, untouched for so long trembled. His mind remembered the tongue from earlier. He is loose. Primed, ready from a virtual eating-out. He could feel something down below. It felt so very real, even more then the neurospace wold he shared.

"Take me Sir.." he breathed. He WOULD please his Captain, he wouldn't cop out on this. Not now. Even if he could barely move.

 

* * *

 

Surrender is sweet, isn't it?

Hawker always had this in him, that much was obvious to him now. Something old in his programming drove him to pursue the submission of others, rewarding him handsomely when he got it either freely or by force. He wasn't questioning it now, just turning the fucked-up predilection over in his mind. Savoring the harsh, violent bliss it was allowing him to feel.

_"Take me Sir..."_

<I will, my little human.>

One tentacle slithered down his chest, between his quivering thighs, and slowly pressed between those cheeks made slippery by the liquid he sat in. It stroked at that puckered entrance as a second tentacle idly circled around his chest, continued up to his neck, and wound three times around that finely corded column of flesh before gently pressing against Chris' lips and slipping in.

To Hawker, it was like he'd stuffed himself inside the boy's mouth, and he groaned appropriately.

<On your knees.>

The appendages lifted him up to assume the position. Then, at once, both real and neurospace probes pushed themselves in. The penetration was mind-blowing: it was like he was fucking Chris' ass and mouth at the same time! Even weak and exhausted, his little body took the invading shafts beautifully. He felt the kid's tongue on the underside of his cock, the slight grazing against teeth as he pushed to deep-throat; he also felt, in both worlds, that hot, slick tunnel clenching futilely around him.

All at once they drew out, and all at once they plunged back in. Outside, the giant stroked in time. He could feel Chris's heavy breaths on the inside of the interface helmet, his faint struggle against the harness. His softened prick lolled around with every thrust of the probe. Breath caught in his little pilot's throat as though the wind was being knocked from him.

It had to end, though. Hawker had been dancing along the edge for what seemed like forever now, and the pleasure he was being fed from 5 simultaneous erections pushed him over the edge. A little blip of code was triggered somewhere in his CPUs:  _Warning: Systems overloaded._

"HNNNNNAGH!" The sound that escaped him was fierce and ragged; more like a battle cry. " _Fuck!_ " His cocks jumped, churning out liquid heat that geysered into the air in one, two, three, four... seven powerful spurts. The tentacles throbbing inside of Chris' devoured body unloaded too, mirroring what was happening outside, filling him overfull with Hawker's cum. The probe in the cockpit, however, did something else: instead of liquid cum, it spurt jolts of electricity that tingled Chris' insides and bordered, at their peak, on painful. "Fuck yeah..."

Air cycled, subroutines rebooted, fluid pressure slowly returned to normal as the giant mech gathered his wits about him and relishing the afterglow.

Some moments passed before he tapped on his chest again, not having felt Chris move very much since the tentacles withdrew. His slight weight was still inside of him, and he could feel the outline of his body against the walls of his metal stomach.

<How's my lunch doing?> he asked. A lazy smile was on his face.

 

* * *

 

The tendrils wove over his arms, criss-crossing and pulling them tight to his sides. THe bound his legs, clasping carefully an firmly around each limb. They spanned his chest, lifting him upward, to kneel. His neck constricted, being squeezed as the tip pressed to his lips. The message is simple 'I can end you at any time. Suck, boy.' So he did. Thankfully, the Captain wanted more then an exhausted blowjob.

To Chris, it felt as if there were two Hawkers. One laying below him, hands on his hips as it thrusted upward. Another that stood before him. A hand palming his skull as his lips and throat worked to please the pistoning shaft. In the cockpit, his pucker parted, opening and stretching around the thick probe. Whimpers came from the linked pilot, his body ravaged by the tireless machine.

Hawker's orgasam filled him. Cum poured from his mouth and rear, smearing along the twin shafts as they penetrated him then sunk deep to deposit the last of their loads. THe electricity in him forced his muscles to spasm, clenching hard around the thickness in him. His poor prostate shuddered, squirts of watery ejaculated adding to the mess on his stomach.

Chris wanted to pass out. Instead, his mind rolled into a fog as the tentacles around him released their constricting grasp. He fell forward, sprawling in the slippery pool of fluid. The one grasping his neck felt like a gasping hand, just loose enough that he is allowed to breath. His consciousness blanked. He could see himself, bound and resting in the stomach. He could see from Hawker's perspective; gazing over the desk and admiring the truly impressive cumshot that had splattered over the rookies clothes and desk.

_< How's my lunch doing?>_

He wanted to answer. He really did. But even the effort of moving his lips is too much. He had to think it, returning to the comforting darkness of the stomach. Hawker's stomach.

<Tired, Boss. I can't move.>

Long breaths, he swallowed.

<You're a lecherous beast. I love it!>

 

* * *

 

Chris' exhaustion satisfied on a deep level. He'd wrung him out and hung him out to dry. Hawker remembered something Lee had told him about scab school - a running joke about how some of the tougher, more complex AIs 'eat pilots for breakfast'. Part jab and part warning for the kids gunning for DARPA or the FBI or what have you. Chris had just been looking to be a cop. DARPA came to  _him_!

_< Tired, Boss. I can't move.>_

Hawker smiled, crossing a leg over his knee and leaning back against the wall. "Then don't."

_< You're a lecherous beast. I love it!>_

He smiled and chuckled. "Good, and don't you forget it."

They stayed like that for a little while - Hawker quite enjoying the different sensation of being 'occupied' like this. At the end of the day, he was a machine - a  _mech_  - and one of his basest needs was to be bound to a pilot and to be piloted. It was the teamwork, their thoughts dancing in and out of each other at the speed of neuron transmission; it was the small body inside of him, surrounded, protected; it was the complete immersion into humanity that was only possible through having a direct link to a member of the race that created him. For the machine, "home is where the pilot is".

Some scabs laughed and joked about it, but you never heard those kinds of comments come from pilots who worked with Deep Field 2-equipped mechs, because the bond, the brotherhood, was very real.

"Well kid," he began lazily, "This past week you've trained harder and fucked harder than you ever have, I wager. If we keep pushing you, then something you didn't even know you had might break." Hawker slid a hand across his thickly plated belly, still thrilled that he was getting to experience Chris like this. "I'll mention to Kole that you need a few days of R&R. Relax. Enjoy yourself. Go get shitfaced with some of the other boots; it builds character."

 

* * *

 

When he'd first hit the stomach, it had been huge. A room easily ten feet in every direction. The drop from above, the splash into the pool below. As he lay in the comforting embrace of the tendrils, CHris sensed the pseudo-organic walls of the stomach shrinking about him. The space had assuredly grown more confined, the echos of his breath around him were closer. He felt a warm hug all around his body, sparking off soreness in his bruising.

He really did want to sleep. The simultaneous crescendo of Hawker's pleasure had blanked out his mind in the best possible of ways! He bordered on rest, barely a thought straying across his mind as the tentacles slipped across his skin to ensure he is secure and safe. But, that rest eluded him.

COnnected as he was, it wouldn't be safe just for a pilot to nod off. THe wireless is different, Hawker had to choose to watch the kid's dreams. But with the cockpit hookup, sleeping is prohibited by design. Just as he almost dipped off into lala land; a sharp bolt of awareness flooded his mind and he started wake! Just like nodding off during a lecture, waking as your head slipped back and hitting the desk behind you.

Chris meditated in exhaustion, he became aware of their singular gestalt mind. THeir bond. How deep he'd gotten in, with just a week of connection. He'd never been to boot camp, never selected for the elite.

As the massive hand slide across the armored stomach, there is a tiny bump. The pilot inside. His pilot.

Celn would have made it. It would have been hell, but the kid could have done it. Not with his past record sadly, but he had what it took. As long as he kept hard to the training he had the makings of a compliment to the Deep Field 2.

Around him, echoing from the throat above and through the walls of the mech; he heard his Captain speak. There are tears of joy, when told he'd get a break. He anted to crawl into bed and not move for every single one of those days.

Except he had an appointment in medical at 0900. No rest for the weary. <Yes Sir. I will Sir. Thank you Sir.>

He wanted to wipe the tears from his cheeks, but that meant moving. So he just closed his eyes and enjoyed the darkness.

<Can we stay this way a little longer? Feels weird, but  _good_. Maybe until dinnertime? > Thinking is necessary. Words meant moving his sore lips, that oral probe had been deviously vigorous.

 

* * *

 

_< Can we stay this way a little longer? Feels weird, but good. Maybe until dinnertime?>_

"Only because you've put me in a generous mood," he said with a wink on his voice, getting his neurospace self comfortable against the wall as his real self rose from his chair, grabbed that same damn towel and began to clean up. When he saw, with a greater portion of his conscious foreprocessing units, the mess he made on the desk, he bit back a laugh. "Bad news, greenhorn: you're gonna be wearing your boss' spunk on the walk back to your suite."

\---

Neurospace Hawker fell into a hazy meditative state of his own - somewhere between waking and low-power mode while his real self went about surveying his news feed and writing his report for the day, pleasantly reminded every few moments that Chris was still inside of him, warm little smudge of metabolic heat. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in...

_Log #2115 for October 23rd, 2058.  
Continuation of crash room evac training. Officer Celn exceeded all expectations, given the exercise's parameters of low-survivability. I handicapped my sensor range by the standard 42%, and it seemed we were nearly evenly matched. At 0415, exercises ended, and as per Colburn's recommendation, we spent some much-needed time strengthening our working relationship._

Notes: If we are to function as an efficient gestalt unit in the future, we will need more opportunities to get to know each other as individuals while Celn continues to train. I strongly recommend relaxing his schedule; the rigorous training regimen, I believe, is beginning to take its toll. He currently risks burnout.

\---

On one of the upper levels, in one of the few rooms with a view, Kole got a notification of having received a message. It was a report from Hawker; the sergeant opened it and snorted. It was good news.  _Damn_  good news. "Somebody's doing something right," he said to himself, a smile on his face. He told the computer to remind him to pay the pair a visit tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

_"Bad news, greenhorn: you're gonna be wearing your boss's spunk on the walk back to your suite."_

Both in the cockpit and the stomach, Chris chortled out a tired laugh. It rolled for long moments as the thought about the absurdity of it all. <Can't even resist marking my  _clothes_ , can you?> He lazed in that low mental state, savoring the peace, the quiet, the safety of where he is.


	12. Rumors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where the Chief starts getting suspicious about Chris' 'mysterious' bruising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I royally goofed. There was an entire chapter 6 that I forgot to put up! It's posted now, if you wanna go back and re-read more of the build-up to their first fuck. It's got more fun stuff about neurospace and how it affects both humans AND AIs!

Chief Engineer Colburn sat at her desk, fingers tapping with boredom. The anticipation bothered her, enough that she'd gotten a second cup of coffee while a half-consumed one sat steaming on her left. Hours ago, Celn and Hawker had been in the wash bay. Chris displayed his usual fearlessness around Hawker. What is fascinating is the change in the mech's attitude, how it treated the rookie.

In training they'd been in a friendly competition, like a paintball game instead of a live fire exercise. Getting cleaned up they were positively jovial! Hawker would order, badger and tease the greenhorn. THe kid would give the ribbing back, while doing his duty. When he risked his hands and arms in the oversized mouth, she knew something good was happening.

There hadn't been so much as a mislaid finger on the prospective pilot!

Then they went into the office. The door had closed. Hawker's engines screamed. Then it had been quiet.

She sipped the fresh coffee, placing it down at her side; noticing the duplicate. "Am I supposed to go in after you two?" came the concern of the mama-bear. She knew she shouldn't. They needed to talk, to work things out. But she worried!

\---------------------

Sometime around 1820 the pangs of hunger became greater then his desire to drift on the edge of consciousness. The tentacles held him, protesting. The sleek stomach lining pressed against his face like the caress of the most comfortable sheets. Stay here, stay forever they whispered. Chris whined softly. He knew it is past time to eat. "Okay." he mumbled, his cramped fingers working in the real world. They pressed the button that initiated the disconnect.

He wasn't sure if Hawker had an exit plan for him. But to be honest, it didn't matter this time. They'd have more chances to do this again. The burning affection he felt for his partner would ensure that they'd have many more times together. Hundreds more, if the mech is to be trusted.

The 30 foot Hawker dissipated in favor of the 15 version. Naked and sore, Chris re-woke as the connection show down. His arms ached, his legs ached. His stomach and thighs are coated with the sticky remains of his jizz. But there is an unexpected sensation; and his poor anal ring ached as well! As he waited for the restrains to relax, he looked at the nearest camera.

"I would love to ask whoever modified you a few hundred questions." he grumbled, the grip on him loosening. "And shake their hand." he admitted.

 

* * *

 

_Representatives of the United Balkan Republic are trying to crack down on the illegal arms smuggling, but they still maintain that the government has played no role in abetting the lucrative black market industry. Investigators sent from the UN have concluded that the weapons are, in fact, Asian in origin, though tracking down their manufacturers has proven to be a daunting task since the inception of the so-called 'War on Guns'. With pressure mounting from Western Europe, Balkan leaders are meeting this week with delegates from the Republic of Xinjiang, Gansu, and Mongolia, for talks regarding the growing power of these international smuggling rings. But without cooperation from Western Russia or Kazakhstan, efforts at stemming the flood of arms may, experts say, stay dead in the water. Live from Albany, I'm Kendra Ross, and you're watching -_

Hawker sensed that Chris' body was growing restless. The little stomach gurgling in his own larger one. Fingers in his real stomach -  _cockpit_  - twitched stiffly to life and the disconnect sequence engaged. The AI was gently pulled from neurospace back, fully, into his real body. There was not a lot that was different, but it was enough. Chris, for one, was bigger.

_"I would love to ask whoever modified you a few hundred questions. And shake their hand."_

The giant's smile hid an unseen frown. "I've been asking that question for years, kid," he said, hatches opening.  _Not sure I'd want to shake their hand, though._  His hand waited to steady his charge's likely uneasy steps out and to guide him back onto the desk to get dressed. "Somebody knows something, but they're not talking. I guess it's my exciting little secret." He laughed darkly: "Unless you happen to know a guy who knows a guy who works for the CIA?"

 

* * *

 

The tired pilot stood nude on the lower hatch plate, his arm raised and hanging on a handle. "Do I need to wipe you down inside? I don't feel bad about the techs mopping up my sweat but.." he paused, eyeing the same rag from the previous day. "..I think we're going to need kleenex in your size. Or something along those lines."

Chris's clothes are not only drenched in what counted for Hawker's semen, but the stuff had dried. He had to pick up each article of clothing and *break* up the stiffness. Like it'd been doused with far too much starch. The jockstrap was the worst, it felt more like a cup as it went around his thoroughly tired package. His socks had somehow been missed, as had his boots. So at least something didn't feel damp and gritty.

At least the grey color kept things from looking too obvious. Smell like the chemical odors of the mech.

"I'm afraid not. But if the CIA spooks ever do show up, I will ask for the details on why you are the  **big**  man."

On that desk is a ladder and a gantry with an elevator. Sized for human passengers, as it might be necessary to scale up to that surface. There is also a Hawker-sized computer and a few other oversized desk implements. Chris wondered just why they were necessary.

Maybe, it was just so the Deep Field 2 would feel more at home. More like a cop and not a war machine. COuld it be that simple?

"Allright. Barring your cleanup; AGAIN. I'm going to wash up and get food. I know you gave me time off, but do you want me down here after the medical exam tomorrow?" He is hungry, and the uncomfortable clothing must be rubbing against his bruises. The jock framed the recent one on his rear adorably; in a sadistic kind of way.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn't just the physical exhaustion, Chris is sexually done in as well. Yesterday AND today! Kisses, snuggles, oral. Being taken from both ends! He slide his hands over his body, rubbing the soapy suds along the bruises with care. As usual the shower on the 8th floor felt fantastic. There are places where the older bruising meshed with the newer. Eventually he just stood int he shower stall, steam and hot water flowing over him as he tried to forget how lover Hawker meant hurting.

Fuck. He wondered what the next place would be. Maybe his face? Would he have a shiner for a few weeks? That mark would be prominent. Everyone would see and know what'd happened. Maybe.. maybe it is best that most of Hawker's artistry lay under his clothes.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting at the table, Chris opened up his phone and read the message from Wen. He texted her back, having trouble believing that she'd seen him just this morning. 'Glad to hear you're well. Did hand to hand with LT Toren this morning. She has 4 inches and at least 20 pounds on me! It'd be like trying to take on a T6 with a T5! Oh, and the T6 is an expert. She had no problem embarrassing me.' He dug into his meal, packing away the protein before adding more. 'Hawker is finally talking with me. I think he has decided I'm worth training up. Last week or so has been hell. My feet feel like lead and I can't even stand up straight. If I didn't have to be in medical tomorrow, I'd sleep for 36 hours straight.'

He finished off dinner and the protein milkshake. 'So um, I have a few days off. What do people do in their off time around here? A block or two around 42 is seedy. If you're being charitable. I wanna go out a little, get some drinks. Are there like, group outings or bar crawls or something?"

 

* * *

 

_"..I think we're going to need kleenex in your size. Or something along those lines."_

Hawker snorted. "A wet vac."

_"But if the CIA spooks ever do show up, I will ask for the details on why you are the **big**  man."_

And the snort turned into a laugh, though his optics and most of his other sensors never left Chris. "What, I didn't make a strong enough case for myself?"

The awkwardness of the situation amused the mech to no end. The kid's face as he slipped on the jock, dropping little showers of fine, white particulate from Hawker's dried fluids, was perfect. It framed that little ass as perfectly as it was surely sore, and if there was anything the captain took pride in, it was his handiwork. He reached out and gave a little pinch to the bitten cheek, smiling as Chris' breath hitched in his throat at the little jolt of pain.

_"I know you gave me time off, but do you want me down here after the medical exam tomorrow?"_

"Negative. Go have a social life for a little bit, give your body a rest. I need you happy, healthy, and in good standing with the rest of 42. And that, my delectable little pilot, is an order," he said, then leaned in just before sending Chris on his merry, aching way. "Besides, those marks need to heal a bit before I go and make new ones," he said seductively, "Your real estate is at a premium, and I'm buyin'."

When he left, Hawker got to work wiping down his own cockpit. He might be able to pass off the smell as being from an involuntary ejaculation, which  _did_  sometimes happen depending on how the pilot entered neurospace. It was similar to a phenomenon experienced by fighter pilots.

Still, the mech thought, it would be prudent to start keeping a few cleaning supplies in here... and maybe a change of clothes for the kid, too. Techs didn't exactly get paid enough to be scraping jizz off of harnesses.

\---

Hawker was only alone for maybe another 20 minutes before the gigantic door hissed open, revealing a Sergeant Kole sharply dressed in slacks and a suit jacket, underneath which was holstered his SIG Sauer. The lines on the front of his pants looked sharp enough to draw blood. At the entrance of his superior, Hawker stood up straight and nodded. "Sir."

But Kole waved his hand dismissively as he idly strode in, hands in his pockets. "Y'know, they said they wiped all your military protocol too, but lookin' at you right now I'd think you'd never left Irkutsk."

The simplicity and geniality of the man's words often belied a sharp wit, a long memory, and an impressive grasp of intricacy that made Hawker proud to serve under him. But it was in conversation like this, the AI knew, that Kole was truly a master of language: he said exactly what he meant to and no more, no less.

"I was in Irkutsk, was I?"

Kole paused, shooting the mech a knowing glance before looking away with a shrug. "I just assumed," he wryly feinted. "It wasn't a hot spot for nothing."

Irkutsk was, according to the mech's research about the war, the likeliest place he could have been stationed, though no documentation about the distribution of US-based HLX-9 Vanguards was ever made public. A single grainy satellite image was all that he'd been able to find, and whether or not it was him or some other mech was impossible to tell thanks to the visual interference created by jamming signals.

"Relax," the sergeant continued. "You're a stateside cop, now. Not some black ops experiment."

Hawker rumbled darkly and thumbed toward the bank of screens. "Things keep going down the shitter like they are, and we might all be playing soldier again. And it won't be in Siberia this time either."

Kole stopped near the mech's feet, but not so close that he had to crane his neck. "That's part of the reason I'm here, captain. We got that nice, fat paycheck from the DOJ last month to help get us into top working order - that's where the new batch of pilots came from." Hawker knew this, but didn't interrupt. "Everything in this place is getting an overhaul," the man said with a sweep of his hand. "Including you. We've got a few tweaks to make on your power systems; it's long overdue. Your thorium's getting old too, I reckon."

He engaged the interface module for his power core: it looked like an mile-high wall of readouts and numbers about the current functioning of his micro-reactor and its subsidiary systems. He could barely make heads or tails of the data - he was a cop, not a nuclear physicist - but did eventually find what he was looking for. "I've got about six months left on these fuel rods, sir. Why not wait until -?"

"No, no. New upgrades, new rods. I've got the thorium on order, so I hope you didn't have any plans this weekend."

He vented and folded his arms. "Was gonna yell at Celn some more, but I guess I can re-schedule."

"Yeah, about that." Kole rode the lift to Hawker's desktop and took a few steps closer to the mech, now that he was nearer to eye level. "Colburn's riding my ass about this, so I'm bringing it up before she does." The sergeant looked up and held Hawker's gaze with his stony gray eyes. "You're not lying to me in those reports of yours, are you?"

The mech's air cycling stopped for a brief moment. Even the mere  _suggestion_  made him burn hot, and not in a good way. But he caught himself - he  _was_  lying, wasn't he?

"Of  _course_  not, sir. I'm ashamed that you'd even think I'd want to."

"She's worried about the stuff she's been hearing coming out of this room when the door's closed."

Hawker's CPUs sputtered, almost glitching. The mech's face remained stony, but he was sure his optics flickered in time with his startled surprise. Air cycling picked up again, and kicked up half a notch. "We talk, sir. It's what mech and pilot do. You remember how it was with Lee."

"You never yelled at Lee," Kole noted in a low voice.

Hawker summoned a partial truth, and it almost physically pained him to do so. But 42 wasn't yet ready for what he and Chris were quickly becoming. "The kid has more potential than I've ever seen," he began slowly, trying to find his footing in the unfamiliar territory. "And I want to work with him, sir. I  _need_  to. But he's..." An uneasy pause. "He's cocky, and cocky gets people killed out there. I need to make sure he's scared of  _something_  in this godforsaken world."

A raised eyebrow. "And that something is gonna be you?"

"If that's what it takes, sir."

Kole nodded to himself, rubbing his chin for a few painfully long moments. Hawker was sweating proverbial bullets. "You need to submit an addendum to your reports every time you take disciplinary action with that kid," he said. There was no arguing with that tone of voice. "You're to describe the infraction and the action taken in detail, and it needs to be sent to both myself and Colburn from now on."

"Yes, sir."

The man left the top of the desk by stair this time. "Be ready Friday night, Hawker. Got a truck coming to take you to the lab over in Rockford. Celn can tag along if he wants... and if you'll have him."

"It would be a good experience for him. Educational."

"Yeah, something like that. Anyways, I'm off to grab a bite with the DA to talk some stuff over. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning, officer."

Hawker felt the automatic straightening of his fingers for a salute, but he stopped himself. "Enjoy your evening, sergeant."

Kole was just about to step out again when he stopped, but didn't turn around. "You  _were_  in Irkutsk, by the way."

The tang of bitterness crept across his CPUs. "What if I didn't want to know where I was?"

 _Now_  Kole turned around and he winked. "You did."

The door shut behind him, and Hawker sat down to refresh his memory about just what had gone down in that US occupied city on the frozen shores of Lake Baikal.

 

* * *

 

Chris stared at the tray that had contained his lunch. A fork and spoon rested there, the empty bottle that'd held a protein drink rested in the divot that is mental to hold the main course. He felt so damn tired, but he couldn't motivate himself to get up. Even the fresh bite on his behind couldn't influence him to stand. He scrolled through the small number of contacts on his phone.

He didn't have a good pic of Hawker. He needed a few and at least one of the mech smiling for an icon. That'd be quite the challenge! The background on his phone is just a promotional photo of the a vanguard hlx-9 being awesome with the American flag in the background. Then, the gears in his head turned.

When had he added that? He couldn't recall. Was Hawker up in his phone?

Then the screen shifted to a photograph of Colburn herself. Chief Engineer Colburn no less and his phone displayed a message. "Celn, report to my office ASAP. Room 4-115."

Damn it. Now he had to get up.

Ten minutes later he is limping through the maze of offices on the fourth floor. Each intersection has one of those signs that splits up the offices in groupings. 1-49 left, 50-250 right. Eventually, he found the right place. What kind of maniac had designed the floor layout here?

He knocked and entered when her voice spoke from within.

There is no way this is her normal stomping grounds. THe office is too neat, too clean, and there aren't six projects ripped apart on a bench. This had to be her official office, the one where you do paperwork; or meet with high ranking city officials.

Chris spied dust on the fake plants. The calendar on the wall is a few months off. The two chairs across from the desk were barely broken in. And he could see where her footprints had messed up the nap of a repeatedly vacuumed carpet.

"Come in, come in." SHe had a grease smudge on her right cheek. He could see on her forearms where she'd washed her hands, and where the line of dirt began. He didn't envy whoever had to launder her jumpsuits. "Close the door and sit down."

The door swung shut behind him, and he limped in, carefully sitting down in the inexpensive office chair. There is no way he could park his butt and not have some bit of his rear ache. The smirk the robot had when he'd done that! Hawker knew his pilot would suffer for days.

"I see you're in your normal post training condition." she observed with a dry smile. "Tell me what you did today."

"This morning was doing sparring practice with LT Toren. She embraced me hard after trying to have me take her down, which I couldn't. Then we did work on the heavy bag until 1300. I think my arms are going to fall off." he commented.

"Lieutenant Sarah Toren? She's an entry officer. She's also into MMA. Ask to see some of the footage from her fights." Colburn tapped on her keyboard. "Four hours of combat training. After lunch what did you do?"

"Crash room with Hawker. He got to play Tom to my Jerry. I'm not sure how long it was, couldn't have been more than hour of constant fighting and running. I had a paint gun, a side arm. He chased me through the streets. I evaded but could not exit without him capturing me." the rookie recalled.

"During this time, did you have physical contact with the HLX-9?"  
"Just a tap on the shoulder or him putting a boot down in front of me."

Colburn entered more data into her computer. "Do you think you performed to expectations?"  
"Hard to say ma'am. I'm on foot with a popgun running from a juggernaut."  
"Get caught?"  
"8 times. Almost made it out too. Got a cramp on the final sprint."

She raised an eyebrow, and leaved back in her chair. A steaming cup of coffee rested at her left, and she drank a sip. "So what did you and the HLX discuss in his office for 3 hours? It couldn't have been your performance then."

Chris felt the hairs around the interface implant stand on end. He tilted his head to the right, sliding his hands over his thighs.

"Am I in trouble, Chief Engineer?"

She had a chuckle at that. "Celn, you look like you were the heavy bag. You're dead on your feet. Why would you be in trouble?"

Chris's lips pulled to the side as he leaned back and sighed. "I'm tired ma'am. Not thinking straight."

"You didn't answer my question Chris."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, lower his head for a moment, before wiping a hand over his face. "I was in Captain Hawker's office. He carried me in on his shoulder."

"Uh-huh."

"Put me on his desk and we spoke about our future. I think he is warming up to me. He seems to think we do have a future."

"That took about a minute. What about the other 179? Don't make me drag this out. I have all night to get this report done, and I'd wager you want to sleep before your exam tomorrow."

"Well, we are getting along good now. So I suggested.."

"You suggested? Not the Captain?"

"Well.. I supposed it was a mutual idea. I felt alright."

The warm vapors of her coffee steamed around her nose, her eyes locked on the fidgeting young pilot with the directness of an angry mother. Chris didn't like being on the carpet. She gestured with her hand for him to continue, wishing the kid would spit what'd happen out already.

"We interfaced. Just sitting in his office. Together. No combat, not really even moving. Just us experiencing each other. Around 1800 we did a standard disengagement." He wasn't lying, just not exactly telling the whole truth.

"Anything else? Just spending time linked up before you'd been cleared?" she sounded calm, not getting angry at  _him_. He had memories of the foster homes, blaming the other children.

"Well, he did lift me up in and out of the cockpit. And we talked about this week. He said I am to go on a break for a few days. THat I'd passed his break in, and that I had tons of work ahead of me before I'd be an acceptable replacement for Lee."

Colburn sighed. "Chris, I know you think you're indestructible. If your implant gets damaged--"

"I know ma'am." he interrupted.

"--and you did it anyway."

More seat squirming and he sighed again, this time rubbing over the implant. "I missed him."

Colburn watched the way the bruising on his neck moved when the rook spoke. What is she dealing with here? Of everything, Chris sounded utterly sincere when those three words came from his lips.

"Chris, you aren't in trouble. Once you're cleared, you can spend all the time you can stand with the Captain. You need to start doing daily reports. I need you to fill out reports for the days.." she paused and double-checked her own reports. It really had been just about a week since the scab had walked in for an interview with the others. "..sense you arrived. Consider it punishment for disobeying medical's orders."

"Yes ma'am. Am I dismissed?"

She gave him a long look. THe look of a parent who knew her kids were misbehaving, but unsure just how badly. Chris felt his sore shoulders lower under that glower.

"I'll see you in medical at 0900 tomorrow. And I better have a week's worth of reports."

With a groan, Chris pushed himself up. "Yes ma'am. Thank you for your concern. We are going to make it."

After he'd left and the footfalls near her office quieted, Chief Engineer Colburn ran the recorded dialogue through an analyzer program. Like her gut said, CHris had told her the truth. But she'd be a poor cop if she hadn't seen through his awkward hesitations. "What are you boys  **up**  too?"

She put the finishing touches on her report and sent it off to Kole. She had to include the footage where the HLX had abused the rookie in the motor pool. If Hawker really was doing something terrible to Celn, she'd have a hard time forgiving herself for letting things get this far.

And she'd watch Hawker melt down from the inside out,  _AFTER_  forcibly removing his coolant.

\-------------------------------

"CHRIS!" Exclaimed Ferdinand as they swapped places at the elevator. The older pilot high-fived Celn as he exited on level 8. "Hey man, Wen mentioned to me that you actually had some time off coming up?"

"Yeah. I think like, two, three days."

"Well, if you can move, we're going to catch a game at Wrigley Field. Wanna come?"

"Fuck yes, even if you have to stick me in a T6."

"Right, see ya tomorrow evening. And wear something civilian!"

On the couch in the shared living room, Chris found his left side to be the most tolerable to lay on. He express ordered two outfits from Amazon. Checking that he had an alarm set for the next day, he set another one for two hours and closed his eyes. He'd start writing the. He fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

"I'm telling you, Gideon," Colburn forcefully sighed into her phone, "There's something fishy as fuck going on with those two, and I'm getting to the bottom of it."

Kole only ever tolerated being called by his first name when he was off the clock. "I'm gonna be at the restaurant in five minutes - this'll  _have_  to wait 'til tomorrow."

" _Kole_."

"But I  _promise_  to hear you out."

"You said you spoke with Hawker?"

"I did. Said he's just puttin' the kid through his paces in there. Toughening him up for the big, bad outside world. In other words, doing his  _job_."

Colburn's voice changed. "That's not what Chris told me they were doing."

A frown, then he cocked his brow at the back of the cabdriver's seat. (He didn't trust those self-driving things.) "Oh?"

"Just... get with me tomorrow. I think we need to compare notes."

"Will do, Chief. Will do."

"Oh, and one more thing, Sarge. We might consider putting a security cam in the mech's suite."

"We'll talk tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

\---

The mech spent the rest of his evening, until almost 2300, in the sim room. Except this time it wasn't a police simulation: it was Irkutsk, in 2048: the height of the Siberian War. This was an older program, one he hadn't touched in probably 2 years. Not that he'd worked on any of them since Lee's death, but... Kole's simple admission had him and wouldn't let go.

Hawker had spent the better part of six months coding this one, based on the military data he could find. And it was still incomplete. They'd all be incomplete; there was so much the public didn't know about what happened there, even after all these years.

By 2048, Irkutsk is a husk of the colorful, thriving city it had once been. Nuclear war had given way to cyber war when the best targets had been vaporized, and cyber war had given way to conventional war when the army realized that half its defense strategy was involving the re-adoption of pre-digital technologies. Whey spend $500 million on hackable targeting systems when you could throw a $600 gun on the back of some dogface and tell him to start marching?

Mech AI was supposed to stand-in what had once been a vast infrastructure of networked computers in everything from aircraft over the Pacific to ICBM silos in Kentucky. Their autonomy and mobility was their strength, versus the weakness of a non-adaptive and essentially stationary system. When you put your computer network in the brains of your soldiers, your network goes only where you need for it to go, does what you need for it to do. A computer node that could both physically and digitally defend itself, hide, and make snap decisions alongside a group of humans was a powerful thing. That was the official story, at least.

Hawker had always been one to trust people, but be deeply skeptical of systems. So when he found out that he'd been in Sibera and could find no documented evidence to support it except for a crummy satellite photo and a few off-hand mentions by journalists in the occasional expose, HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker #9081, he attempted to fill in the blanks himself by writing simulations in his spare time.

Irkutsk was cold - obscenely cold, actually - and most of the color seemed to be drained from the few original Czarist buildings that remained standing. He was in a main thoroughfare, operating a checkpoint for civilians trying to come and go from the neutral zone. But the problem was that this didn't seem right. He was too big and too heavily armored for such a banal assignment, his geometry all wrong for being out on the street like this. No, he wasn't here.

The scene changed.

Now he was a sentry at the rail depot, which served as a valuable staging area for the troops' supply line. Cargo was unloaded, sorted, staged, and loaded up onto trucks. The Sino-Uralnye were livid at having lost such a valuable asset as the railroad, so the trains, the tracks, and the depots were under as much protection as the US and her allies could spare.

But he wasn't right for this either. An HLX- _4_  could have done the job just the same - you didn't need a $8 million installation of Deep Field 2 to stand around and hold a gun. No, DF2 was developed to do one thing really, really well: to pass the Turing/Hinschelwood test.

And therein lay the elephant in the room: Hawker did not possess near-human levels of General Intelligence for no reason, nor would he have ever been put to work doing what a  _real_ , and much cheaper, human could do; and on the other hand, he would have never been put to work doing what a computer-guided  _turret_  could do, and again, do for much cheaper. No: Hawker was a very expensive, very specialized, and very  _special_  merging of the two. He now knew he was stationed in Irkutsk - it was only a matter of finding out why.

The mech thought about Chris, letting the simulated snow gather on his simulated shoulders. The kid was a clever little shit; his way of thinking was different from his own. Complementary. Maybe he'd be able to see something here from an angle that Hawker had never considered.

No... this was his burden to bear. The kid had his own demons, and Hawker was happy to let them be small, just like his pilot, in comparison to the potentially enormous skeletons in his closet.

He ended the sim, phasing back out into the real world, and unplugged himself from the interface. His gleeful harshness with Chris was reminding him of things that weren't even there, things that lay beyond the murky edge of memory. Hawker wondered, then, that if he couldn't ask questions about his past directly, then maybe he could ask them indirectly. Maybe he could start with asking Colburn just what the real success rate of wiping a Deep Field 2 memory network was. How many little bits of ghosted data it was sure to leave behind. If any of it was potentially recoverable...

The mech vented and rubbed at his face. "I think I need to start with some shut-eye before anything else," he muttered to himself as he trudged out the door.

 

* * *

 

"..ooow.."

Beep Beep Beep!

"Try it again." said the voice, barely able to contain it's laughter.

"..uuuungh..." Chris realised that sound was HIS voice! His phone sat in his hand, alarm buzzing.

Tsung poked again and he just groaned in tired pain. "..huuurrrr.." He opened his bloodshot eyes. "I'm.. awake.."

She touched his right shoulder again and looked sag when he didn't make the noise. "You sounded like wall in Dark Souls! And you look dead." Tsung's family had immigrate to the US from China kist 7 years ago. Her english is imperfect, but her skills are astounding. Chris remember that from when she'd repeated kicked their asses at every video game they'd played. "..when.. what.."

"Your phone buzzing. Why you set alarm for 9 at night?" she gave him one last poke, then went off to make a video comparing his groans to that very sound effect. It'd be on the top of /v/ soon enough. Chris slowly pushed himself upright. His body ached. His limbs were tied down with lead.

"I have.." he leaned back into the couch, blinking at the TV as the news went on. "..reports to get done." The door to his room is just 15 feet away. Might as well be 15 miles. Tsung is busy with her phone. She gave a him a smile though, a smile that said she knew his agony.

China had forced military training these days. Tsung would've gone through boot camp at age 16. She is military, just not American military. "You ever felt like this?" Chris managed with getting a hitch in his breathing.

"Yes. Many times. You need to stretch, or else you lock up. Turn into concrete." She made a fist at that. "Here, I can show you."  
Putting down her phone, she did simple movements with her arms. Chris followed, the pain still there. THen she rolled her shoulders. Moved her head in circles on her neck. She took perhaps three minutes and moved through her body. CHris followed, eventually ending up on his feet, her in front of him like an aerobics instructor. "Now touch toes." She leaned forward, easily touching her toes and coming back up with inches to spare.

Chris bent over, feeling his back creak. He came comes, bouncing just an inch or two away. THen, after thirty seconds. "... Tsung.." he chuckled, his voice filled with amusement. ".. I can't.." he laughed, bouncing with his own chuckling "..I can't get up!"

She let out a bark of a laugh, stepping up and using her hands on his shoulders to raise the beaten pilot. "Okay, you get to bed. Write report with implant. Takes five minutes, easy." She thumped hard on his left arm, right where Hawker'd taken a bite.

"Nnnuuuuughgggnn!"

"DAMN! I miss that one. You stop that, is not Halloween."

"Thanks Tsung. See you tomorrow."

====================================  
The computer supplied to him by had a limited neural interface. This wasn't like jacking into Hawker. But without his eager lust behind him, he worried. He worried about what Colburn had said. She is right. He could risk really hurting himself. At least he only left like he had lead on his arms and legs now, the stretch had noticeably helped. WIth a face full of regret, be began to fill out reports for past days. And one for today.  
__  
Daily Report: October 23, 2054  
Hand to Hand combat with LT Toren, 2 hours. LT repeatedly showed her superior skill, and demonstrated the need for my improvement. Also, she fights clean; can punch and kick like a mule. 2 Hours of heavy bag punching.

Crash room with Hawker, 1 hour of continuous training with paintball guns; on foot VS the mech. Spend time in wash bay cleaning paint off Hawker afterward. Discussed personal and professional concerns, then linked to discuss more and experience peaceful unity.

Notes: Spoke with Chief Engineer Colburn. She had concerns about my relationship with the HLX-9. I feel the relationship is rocky, but healthy. We've been together about a week, we're still figuring out how this will work. But that's an improvement over if this will work.

Daily Report: October 22, 2054 ...

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

The twenty minutes it took him, plus remembering what had gone on felt like a month's worth of effort to write out everything. Just once through the spellchecker and he sent it off to Colburn. THe collar sat on it's charger, the few certificates he had sat in grubby plastic frames. He opened a desk drawer. Ibuprofen, and the medicine he'd been prescribed. He polished off a whole bottle of water with the pills.

He started at the screen of his computer as it went to sleep.

He had lied to Colburn. Lied by omission. Lied about her very legitimate concerns. This isn't going to go away. THey were digging themselves deeper. Tomorrow, he'd go down to the motor pool and get a solution for this. Hawker had better come up with a damn good reason.

He took off his boots, then slid under the covers in bed. Outside of the thin walls he could hear the TV as Tsung played Dark Souls 17. "BULLSHIT I died! Stupid hitboxes!"

It all came down on him heavily. What he and Hawker did wasn't against the rules. Policemen could fraternize. If they'd just had sex, no one would care. Too much. But .. it was the bruising. The squeezing. The dick-harding bites that were the problem. Chris loved that stuff.

Technically, it is abuse. Even if he consented each and every time. How the hell do you get THAT crap past the radar?

The Deep Field 2 better be able to help him come up with something. CHris didn't want to stop banging.. Heh. Banging Hawker. Sleep tugged at his concerned brain and he eagerly followed.

\--------------------------------------------------

0900, Medical.

Chris lay back on the massage table, familiar equipment humming as it probed and analyzed the implant. Secondary scanners examined the surrounding tissue and the places where the tiny nano-tendrils mingled with human nerve cells. The process numbed him, giving a floating feeling kind of like being on happy bubbles. Chris loved the happy bubbles. He let out a giggle, his toes wriggling in his socks.

Colburn tapped the stylus of her tablet against the side of her head. 07-C always had been problematic. It'd migrated from MASH to the civilian world. It had quirks, rudeness, and exception skills in equal amounts. And right now it is  _snarky_. "A full body scan was performed two days ago. This examination is a followup of that procedure. There is no apparent damage and Celn does not have new medical concerns."

They spoke not far the the alcove housing Chris. He might hear them, but right now he is in no mental shape to listen. Colburn tapped the screen of her tablet, then showed off the full-body of Chris, complete with the bruising. "I need to see if there is new damage. I am ORDERING a second scan. You will do the scan, you will do a full comparison report and you WILL have it to me by 1200 today."

07-C felt annoyed. That is the usual response to dealing with brass. Soldiers were easy, they obeyed when in pain. A little bit of agony and suddenly it's word carried all the weight in the world. And Celn now listened. Not that there is much difference between police and the military. Except the police could get fat. "Of course, Chief Engineer Colburn. I will perform as instructed."

 

* * *

 

If Hawker was capable of dreaming, then he would've been haunted by footage from the war. Not his own, if there ever was any, but from drone cameras, news reporters, and elsewhere. When he was roused to full consciousness again, it didn't feel like his systems were any cleaner.

The mech was surprised that he was interested in seeing Chris again; that somehow, the human might help mitigate the burden of this tiny piece of information. But he couldn't lay a hand on him for a little while yet. Probably, he decided, not until next week. They needed to cool it down, after all. He told Chris that he needed to start having a social life, start having relationships outside of the fucked-up affection Hawker was able to provide. Kole compared it to a marriage, and, well, he wasn't exactly  _wrong_.

But the sergeant's words the night before left him unsettled regarding not just Siberia, but Chris too. It was clear what Colburn was beginning to interpret their relationship as being, and it was surprising that Kole didn't share the intensity of her concerns. The word echoed in the back of his foreprocessors:  _Abuse_.

Why did Chris even  _want_  this? Why did he seem to love his rough, heavy hands? His threadbare warmth? His doting malice? His hard, titanium embrace? The kid had experienced pain and fear. Why did he want more now that he was safe? Hawker remembered the dream he'd been made captive audience to; something in it told him that the small, slight young man had taken at least one life. Maybe he'd once felt what Hawker was feeling. Maybe he  _knew_.

Would Colburn accept any of this? The mech didn't know. Wasn't sure he wanted to know. But one thing was for certain - something had to give, and disclosure was coming sooner than anticipated.

\---

At 0745, Colburn sat down in Kole's office, pulling a datapad out of her bag as the two exchanged pleasantries and the sergeant settled in.

"I'm going to be straight, Sarge," she said with a frown, pulling up her notes from her impromptu meeting with Celn the previous evening. "It's clear that one of them is lying."

Kole sighed heavily and motioned for her to close his door. "I'd rather this not get out if I can avoid it," he grumbled, rubbing at his temples."You understand. Now... what the hell do you mean by that?"

"One of them is lying," she plainly repeated. "Their stories aren't matching up. Hawker says he's being hard, Chris says soft. You're either yelling and shoving -" Colburn paused to sigh and shake her head as frustration was beginning to overcome her. "That damn mech is  _fifteen feet and six tons_. There's  _nothing_  Chris could do to stop him from getting smacked around if the HLX-9 was so inclined. What is he gonna do, go for the family jewels? Hawker doesn't..." An uncomfortable trailing off.

Kole flicked his eyes in her direction. His elbows were on the desk, fingers steepled as he listened. "Hawker  _does._ "

A very tense silence filled the air for what seemed like minutes. Colburn knew that. She knew what he had before they hauled him off the flatbed and spent two months prepping his systems for a new line of work. Lee - rest his soul - knew too. And he took the job anyway. Lee never saw Hawker's file, though. He wouldn't have been able to pilot the mech if he had, because the sordid details of what the equipment had been  _used for_  would have been available for the AI to potentially discover while the two were linked. Keeping that from him had been one of the most difficult things that Colburn had ever done, even as it became clear that the pair were inseparable. In the end, though, it was probably better that Davidson had never learned of the atrocities his Vanguard Hawker unit had happily helped to commit in Siberia, and died thinking -  _knowing_  - the machine was a hero.

"There was always that chance," Colburn said quietly, her voice touched by unease. "With the quantum systems, you can only scrub them so clean. If you want 100%, you need to replace the physical hardware. We got 99.4%."

Kole was pensive. Eyes on a pen that he was rolling slowly between his fingers. "Do you think he's unintentionally acting on old protocol?"

"The psychological models for machine emotional intelligence are barely a decade old, and none of it concerns potential mental illness; PTSD; trauma. It could be that Lee's death triggered latent habits of his, long-buried by time and long-butchered by the erasure of his memories."

He looked at her, and just barely above a whisper: "Was this entire program a mistake?"

"I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater just yet. We need to find out what's going on, and  _then_  we can make a decision like that."

"Is he still fit for duty?"

"That may be one of the few things that could give us our old Big Nine back, Sarge. If Celn can learn to take it easy with his interfacing, then I say fast track 'em for patrols. Seeing how they work out on the street may answer more of our questions." She glanced at the clock and cursed under her breath. "Speaking of, I gotta get to medical soon. And please, talk to the mech about putting a cam in there. Just don't make it sound like..."

"Don't make it sound like we don't trust him anymore."

"I'd say to use tact, but... he seems to appreciate your lack of bullshit more than anything, sir."

"I'll see if I can't get that done while he's in Rockford."

"Thanks, Gideon."

"Same to you, Sarah. We'll stay on top of this, alright?"

"Without a doubt."

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the warm bubbling sensation went away. Eventually, the dull pain filled him and he became aware that he is laying on a medical table. Robotic hands brushed past his face, unstrapping equipment and the probe in his neck withdrew. As things tend to go in medical, all Chris had on is the ubiquitous medical smock. Memories came back to him, after the mind-zonk of the mental scanning, he'd been asked to take off his clothes. For some reason.

The robotic hands opened the velcro back, opening the clothing and exposing his back. Not even a grunt as the hands gently lifted him up, sliding the sleeves off his left; then right arm. The voice of 07-C came up, sounding strangely subdued. "Continue holding still." A bright light swept down him, then up. Those hands rolled him over, and the light swept over his body again. The smock is carefully draped over his chest, to preserve some modestly. "You may rest here while information is processed."

Chris didn't even bother opening his eyes back up. "'kay.." He drifted off into a nap that came without dreams.

\---------------------------------

07-C entered the scanned images into it's report for Chief Engineer Sarah Colburn. Each image got filed in the progression of scans from Celn's short career. The first is from 9 months ago, from when he entered the police academy. He is thinner, less muscled. His left hand was missing the middle, ring and pinky fingers; each cut off just below the second knuckle. There are less scars then he had now, but no bruising. THe next image is from 3 months ago, right before the implant went in. He appeared healthy, scars the same as before, just one large bruise on the right shin. Then, six scans of just the neck as the health of the implant is checked. Two weeks ago, there is another scan. Chris looks smooth and healthy, the implant has the traditional scabbing. Then, the two from this week.

The bruising! Celn is marbled like Petaluma blue cheese! Huge crescents, large blotches from blunt force, pinch marks up to 8 inches long; it's an astounding collection damage. All of it accrued in the last two weeks. The scan from today featured a new crescent bruise, across his well-developed glutes. The oldest bruises were fading, some going into the green end of discoloration. 07-C dutifully laid out it's analysis of the damage and the progression of healing. THis wasn't good. The source of damage is obvious, the lack of fear shown by Officer Celn is not. Like everyone else, medical had been watching what had happened between the two.

New damage suggested...? ...insufficient data. 07-C brought up Celn's medical profile. Foster child. Likely insufficient nutrition during formative years. History of drug abuse. Reconstructive surgery of the left hand, paid for by the police sign-on bonus. Interface implant installed. End of adult medical history.

07-C felt frustration percolating in it's foreprocessors again. THe medical gestal had money on Celn and Hawker making it as partners. 07-C did, despite it's reputation, want to see soldiers get back out on the battlefield.

A query to Celn's childhood history, comes back with sealed documents. Why would there be sealed, childhood records? Without Chris's consent, the android wouldn't be able to crack open the documentation from before his 18th birthday. Medical data wasn't helping.

07-C finished the report, and set a timer on the email to deliver it to Colburn at 1159.

\------------------------------------------------------

"Chris." A nudge. "Officer Celn." A firm prod at the fresh bruise on his behind, was enough to rouse the rookie with a start!

The green and chromed shape of the medical android gazed down on the human, it's eyes glowing with a while luminescence. "As your doctor, I have some medical advice."

Chris wiped a hand over his face. He had little dark circles under his eyes, and looked utterly worn out. His arms and chest hard the start of some definition, as did his legs. The muscle development would be rapid with his current activity levels. "I.. wha? What's wrong Doc?"

Doc again. Is the second syllable truly such a burden to speak? "It is currently 1138. At noon I am presenting a report on your current status to Chief Engineer Colburn."

Chris slowly sat up, the smock falling into his lap; the damage scored across his frame in broad; yet carefully crafted strokes. "I.. I'm not all here. Do I need to see her when you do this report?"

Chris couldn't pick up a clue if it had landed in his lap.

o7-C Paused. Then, it felt happy with a thought. "Negative. Please allow me to access your childhood records from social services." THe while lights narrowed and the voice went from professional to furtive. "And I'll tell you what you  **need** to know."

"O-okay? You can access that information?"

07-C felt an eagerness it hadn't sense it'd bet a week ago on the rookie. Now it was time to ensure the second bet went through. Already sending out the query to the slow mainframe that ran the city's older records; it spoke in that same low tone. "Twenty minutes from now, Colburn will see every mark on your body in 4k detail."

\--------------------------------------------

Five minutes later, Chris is standing in the elevator on the long ride down to the motor pool. His shirt is on inside-out, and he knelt down and worked on tying his boots. As the numbers counted down floor by floor, he hurriedly wrapped the laces around and tied them off quick. He had to make it to Hawker's alcove. The elevator doors opened and he walked with a slight limp. He wanted to run, but he needed to appear calm. He knew exactly what he'd say when he reached the big bot.

"Hawker, we need to talk."

 

* * *

 

Hawker was worried about what the exam would uncover, though he knew it was simply a follow-up to the previous implant inspection. They shouldn't have interfaced. But chasing Chris around, and then having his  _junk_  scrubbed clean by that hot little twink, got him fired up. It was too perfect a moment to pass up, and his pilot was more than just receptive - he was able, willing, and eager to please his boss and guardian. And now lover, apparently.

The word struck him as odd, if not a little ironic, given the marks and violent ecstasy. Love in what sense? Certainly not romantic, and  _definitely_  not Biblical!  _Ha._  Humans had words for these sorts of things, though. Dominance and submission. Power exchange.  _Fun_ ishment.

Still, in his deepest, darkest desires, there was blood. There was not just bruises, but scarring. Sobbing wails. Begging for mercy. Unbearable pain. If someone volunteered themselves to die at his hands, he'd take them up on the offer in a heartbeat. But that was not for anyone to know but him... and Chris.

\---

_"Hawker, we need to talk."_

The mech was keeping his thoughts occupied by helping with some digital housekeeping for the precinct - the big bot's version of nervously doing the dishes. He wasn't expecting Chris to come down here; he'd sent a text to find out how things went but got no reply, so he went about his business while he waited.

He was sitting on the floor in his alcove, arm resting on a knee as he concentrated on the menial tasks. But when the elevator doors opened, his optics fluttered on, and he was surprised to find the kid almost come barreling out.

The mech's face hardened at the tone, at Chris' disheveled appearance. He wasn't going to like whatever the kid had to say. "Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be hearing those words a lot more often?" he said, trying not to sound like he didn't want to hear the news. But it came out with an edge, and he realized that it might've sounded like he was angry with Chris. Still, he didn't get a chance to backtrack.

 

* * *

 

_"Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be hearing those words a lot more often?"_

Perhaps it is the body positioning that told Chris just how much Hawker was unlike other mechs. Up and down the motor pool, they stood at rest in their gantries. Parked like cars in a parking lot. Hawker sat, relaxing like the giant he is. How long had he been locked up down here? Poor 'bot had to be a little stir crazy.

Chris walked into the alcove, getting close. He kept approaching until he was just feet from that codpiece. Then he leaned on the thigh of the leg that lay on the ground. THe other knee and hand hovered above him, the stern face scowled somewhere above that; and it's there where Chris cast his gaze.

"I've been cleared for interfacing. We need to keep it under 10 connections a day for a while." His spoke with a calmness he didn't feel. "No rapid stuff either, the full 15 second run. Both ways. I should be back to normal in a month." that is the kind of damage the ejection could do.

He put his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, feeling over the phone as he marshalled his thoughts. "Full body scans were part of the exam. Colburn will have them at 1200." He leaned back, resting his shoulder and head on the thigh as it curved to the top of the leg. He shifted from side to side, itching his back like a bear.

"I also got wrung out by Colburn yesterday. And I have to file dailies." He looked up at the hand on the knee, watching those fingers move. "Not sure how this will all look. How do you want to play it, Captain?"

 

* * *

 

The touch, the weight behind the lean, meager as it was, felt nice. Haptic systems buzzed happily, sending their little signals to his hindprocessors about Chris' body temperature, the sensation of the fine hairs on his arms. It was feeling righter by the day to have him around like this, their bodies near. He wanted to encircle him with his legs.

_"I should be back to normal in a month."_

"A  _month_?" Hawker almost balked. Still, he played a hand in this. It was his decision to perform a forced ejection. Frustration mingled with guilt.

_"Full body scans were part of the exam. Colburn will have them at 1200."_

At  _this_  he averted his gaze. Grimaced. "We play the waiting game," he murmured, then cocked his brow at Chris' sudden little antics. It made him feel a little bit better about all of this. If he was going to be tall, dark, and grim, then Chris was surely shaping up to be the short, cute, and snappy. They were Looney Tunes characters in the making.  _Not._

_"How do you want to play it, Captain?"_

His leg, he noticed, was obscuring Chris from the nearest camera, so he casually moved his free arm to that thigh. A thumb stroked subtly at the kid's arm, and he looked about the motor pool. "They're getting wise faster than I thought," he said, very low, very quiet. "They're going to confront us both sometime soon, I can feel it." Some breathing room - he vented long, and his stroking grew a little too hard. Still, he didn't meet Chris's gaze. "If you don't feel comfortable keeping up the charade, then insist that the four of us meet together. I'd feel better about disclosing our activities that way."

A thought occurred to him and he snorted a little at the dark comedy of it. "Besides." Hawker finally looked down to his pilot, who was practically lounging along his thigh now. It was a sight he could get used to. "I'll need Colburn to refill my  _tanks_  at the rate we're going. Let's just say I've got about seven shots left."

 

* * *

 

Chris pulled his hands out of his pockets and pushed himself closer to the hand. That thumb pressed onto his chest now, firmly stroking his fragile body against the titanium alloy armor. Still sprawled, leaving back, he thought about the situation as Hawker pushed against his heart. The pressure increased, his ribs protesting the force.

_"If you don't feel comfortable keeping up the charade..."_

"I don't Captian." THe small human hand rested on the thumb, tugging at it gently. "She cares about us. I feel terrible about not being able to tell her the truth."

He then poked the massive hand just inches away. "She's worried that you're abusing me. Maybe she thinks you've shorted a circuit and are forcing me into this." He sighed hard, mimicking the venting of his boss.

"How the heck are we supposed to break the ice on this? You and I going up to Colburn and asking what you can store in your tanks?" That got him to chuckle. "What can they be filled with, anyway? Can you store protein in there? Wanna start feeding me after workouts?" Chris did a little hip thrust with a smirk.

Then his face fell as the thought about the implications. "Damn it.. you're right. We do need days apart. I get close and I'm already thinking about getting those last 7 out of you."

He rolled the possibilities around in his head, fingers wiggling before he offered a solution.

"We could let them confront us. Kole and Colburn will come at me first probably. I want them to know that everything I've done; and am going to do is consensual." He raised an eyebrow, turning his head to meet the yellow glowing gaze of his Captain. "It is right? Pretty sure you want to control and take complete advantage of your pilot. Because I sure as fuck loving being with you."

He winked, letting the absurdity of it all bring a smile to his face. "And, well.. crap. Then we gotta take our lumps for being obtuse. THe longer this goes on, the worse it looks. More important things for those two to worry about then you putting your mark on me."

 

* * *

 

_"Wanna start feeding me after workouts?"_

Hawker smirked, optics still scanning the motor pool, and his thumb dug into Chris' arm with just enough force for him to really feel it. "Fuck that, I'd full-on put you on a liquid diet," he rumbled quietly.

 _"We could let them confront us. Kole and Colburn will come at me first probably."_  The mech let his pilot explain his plan with just enough volume to keep from echoing around all the concrete.  _"Because I sure as fuck love being with you."_

"I love being with you too, kiddo," he relented with a murmur. "It isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time, but you knew that." A snort. "There'll be days when I really  _do_  want to just stomp you into the ground. But we work through it, and I get to just beat the piss out of you in neurospace later." His hard-edged face sunk into a frown. "Is it right? Fuck if I know. It is what it is, and I haven't traumatized you yet, so at least there's that."

_"And, well... crap. Then we gotta take our lumps for being obtuse."_

Hawker chuckled. "I  _hate_  being wrong... but you've got a goddamn point." He thought back to the times where he did something that warranted a slap on the back of the hand. Doing maintenance on his own guns - normally a ballistics technician did that - or the security guy got a day off while Hawker was forced to watch the cameras for the entire precinct - all of them at once. But relatively minor infractions were few and far between with him. He played by the rules. If the mech fucked up, it was out in the field, and punishment for the bad call usually came in the form of raw guilt and crushing disappointment. Kole didn't cherish them so much that he never read them the riot act when it was warranted.

"We didn't know," came the simple answer. "But what's done is done, and we own our mistakes. The question is... what if they reassign you? We aren't exactly conducting ourselves by the book, here. And if a journo gets wind of the story..." Hawker growled deep in his chest, not even bothering to finish his sentence.

 

* * *

 

_"Fuck that, I'd full-on put you on a liquid diet."_

Chris's imagination took hold of that idea and RAN! Hawker waking him with dick-nudging for breakfast. 'Milking Hawker for lunch. Hawker's huge hand behind his had, holding his mouth open for a pressurised dinner. Every, single, day.

"That.. that'd be something to try. Ya know, if you wanna. Think I'd miss food after a while though."

He started to make a whine at how hard the thumb is rubbing at his arm. He stepped back, hooling over where the recent abuse had been. His arm is red, sore. Moving the elbow; he could sense a satisifying ache down in his bones.

_"I haven't traumatized you yet"_

"Haw! Yeah, I think we both got a past we don't want to think about too much. I'm not exactly normal, if I like it when you leave your mark." the rookie got a twisted grin at that.

 _"The question is... what if they reassign you?"_  that is the big question, isn't it? Chris rolled over the thoughts in his head, and he tried to recall what procedure was when there are problems with two officers. Seperation is a good way to solving problems. And ensuring he didn't see Hawker again would definitely ensure no more damage got caused. "I'd sure as heck try to stay with you. I know you could probably throw a fit. But.."

He exhaled hard, pushing himself up and walking in little limping circles; pacing withing the small space between the massive legs. "Medical told me I made it to specialist ranking. Don't pretend that you don't know that that means for me; career-wise. There are plenty of stationary systems that are woefully understaffed. Police central? One of the mech manufacturing plants? Hell, I could get picked up for Naval work; stuffed in a ship." It is just a numbers game, 1 in 10,000 implanted pilots are of specialist rank. Depending on your luck with how the implant goes and how your brain takes to the procedure.

Chris probably could quit the police force once his employment 'contract' is up and make a healthy wage elsewhere.

"I'm not going to make noise to the press. Lips are sealed." He mimed locking his lips and throwing the key away. "We shouldn't play anymore, not until this clears up. Medical has me on some kind of medication. If I don't get any more damage, my skin should clear up quickly. "I want to be your pilot, Boss. I want other things with you too. But piloting you? making a difference? Terrorizing the shit out of crime in Chicago?"

He looked up, way up to meet his Captain's eyes, with an uncharacteristically vicious expression on his cute face. "Fuck yes!"

 

* * *

 

_"Medical told me I made it to specialist ranking. Don't pretend that you don't know that that means for me; career-wise..."_

"And you chose  _this_  hellhole. Chose  _me_. From day one, it was do or die with you. I... respected that, even if I didn't know it at the time." Hawker did know what that meant - he saw the specs, knew they were neck and neck with even Lee's. (Just different.) He had also seen Chris' file, seen what the cops knew he'd been through - to speak nothing of what they  _didn't_  - and knew that this was perhaps the best the kid could hope to get with his record. Though Hawker wanted to beat down, he also wanted to build up. And he wanted the best pilot Chicago - no, the entire damn Midwest - had to offer. Better than any damn bobblehead that came out of The Stumps. Better than anything anyone had to offer.

_"I want to be your pilot, Boss. I want other things with you too."_

The mech could wax poetic about The Bond. About what a pilot and their machine - a machine and its pilot - could feel, accomplish. But Chris wasn't exactly about that. And he felt it already, anyways. What they had, Hawker knew, was that Bond. A compatability of intelligence, of emotional awareness, of wit, of desire and fear and experience. With Lee it had been complete. He was looking forward to building the same with Chris Celn.

Hawker chuckled at his enthusiasm.  _Kid's gonna keep me young,_  he thought, and rubbed his own thighs. "Well, you've got the rest of the day off. Where you want to be when the verdict comes in is up to you. I'm not doing anything interesting, so feel free to hightail it back upstairs in the meantime."

 

* * *

 

Chris nodded in agreement. "All Right. But if they don't come to us before we're ready to  _talk_  again, I want to come clean. Preferably in your office, where the inevitable shouting will be muffled. I haven't heard Kole bellow yet, but I'd wager it's magnificent. Or terrifying, if it's aimed at you."

"I did pick 42. We can be great. We just gotta .. ya know. Play by some rules." he does a double bounce of his eyebrows.

"Alright. I'm going to get moving. A couple of the other pilots are going to a Cubs game, and I'm going with. Going to actually have some fun. I wish you could join us. I feel bad for you, stuck down here. Hopefully you can get some fresh air soon."

He stepped forward, beckoning for a hand. He walked into the big metal mitt, hugging the humb tight as if it were the robot's neck. He rubbed his face against the textured thumbprint. "You take care big bot. I'm going to heal up and study my ass off on your systems."

With a kiss to that digit as it pushed on his face, he did his best to hide the limp as he strolled away from the MAN in his left. THings are looking better, and the panic he'd felt earlier didn't seem so worrisome. THey'd face the consequences for lying, and stay together. No matter what it cost them.

 

* * *

 

_"I wish you could join us. I feel bad for you, stuck down here."_

"I think some modifying of the collar might be in order... if we got a two-way link working, I could go anywhere you went." It would be an easy job for Colburn. And hell, throw a speaker on it and he could even join in on the conversation. Of course, if he asked right now it would look like pure possessiveness - another nail in the coffin. "I'll put in a request when this blows over. And it  _will_  blow over."

Chris' face was pleasant against his hand. Skin against the black, textured rubber of his thumb-pad, full of sensors. Temperature: warm. Pressure: slight. Texture: soft; silky; pleasantly elastic. Damage:  _Like hell are they taking you from me._

Lips.

The little human, almost rubbery in his physical resilience and incorrigible in his smiling optimism, headed for the exit while favoring his left leg. Hawker folded his arms again and cocked a thick black brow plate.  _'I like the injured look on you,'_  he sent to the kid's phone, which promptly buzzed at the arrival of the message. The mech gestured with a nod of his head for Chris to check it, and when he did, Big Nine winked.

 

* * *

 

_"If we got a two-way link working, I could go anywhere you went."_

Chris rubbed his cheek to the thumb as that thought went into his ears and stirred up things in his brain. It would be the reverse of piloting, the mech inside the human. "The two way would be fun. Not sure sure about a speaker though. I doubt it'd be able to capture the impressive bass tone of your voice. Kinda like Mozart as a ringtone."

And having the mech being able to talk back would raise another concern for Chris. The collar didn't have significance to other cops at the moment, other than looking like funny equipment. But if everyone in the station knew that Hawker is watching Every Single Thing from Chris's eyes? The greenhorn worried about becoming a pariah! Feeling Hawker watching everything HE did? Whispering in his mind? Perhaps even tugging at his own muscles? That..

..is kinda hot.

Pocketing his phone, Chris grinned back. They'd make this work.


	13. Rockford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one in which Hawker and Chris are forced to spend some quality time together in an observation room in Rockford while Hawker's #9081 chassis is worked on. Are they observing, though, or BEING observed?

That evening, 6 implanted pilots and two non-implanted went out for for some fun. Their lyft arrived, scooting them across town into parts where respectable people lived. Bundled up warm against the October chill, they cheered for their Cubs. Pilots are all a little weird. And when a foul ball knocked up into the stands, they'd all watched it's arc with keen eyes. Observing, analising; the instincts of the machine that flowing into the organic mind. All pilots ended up logical.

Hours later they sat at a table in a bar, Wen and Ferdinand playing darts, while the pilots spoke. Chris found himself in the middle of the group, and he noticed that everyone kind of looked at him. Friendly, respectful even while out. No one really ripping on him. Even here, Hawker's shadow loomed.

"Give it to us straight. Is Nine still the big aloof fuck when you pilot him?" Becker inquired, on his 8th beer of the night.  
"C'mon, you can't be asking that! Hey, I wanna know too!"

Chris had a cider, he'd had enough beers at the ballpark. "Wellllll, I suppose I can spill the beans." he teased the group. "Yes, yes he fucking is." he lied to the disappointed group.

"Dude, I've seen him around you. He never takes his gaze off until you leave them room. He puts himself between anyone and you, too. And He was carrying you the other day." Becker insisted.

The greenhorn devoured a nacho, as he'd reached for the plate in the middle of the table; his sleeve pulled up and showed off a dark mark from where Hawker had rubbed too firmly. "He's not impersonal. It's not like he doesn't want me around or any of that. He prefers a professional relationship. I know that's boring and not fun at all to speculate about. But that's really all there is." He finished off the cider, putting it down in the middle the table next to five others.

"Damn Chris. I've never seen someone your size put away booze like that." Jane pointed out, making sure that the rookie got a water for his next round. "Drink up, you need to hydrate."

They talked and joked, making Chris get up to play darts against Tsung. Who SOUNDLY beat the unskilled and sloshed rook. "Damn girl! Are you this good at everything you do?" CHris asked, pulling a dart out of the wall before getting back to the line and throwing again.

"Yes, Always." SHe grinned, eyes flashing with intensity. "You know, you should do training with me." As Chris tossed his three darts, at least two hit the board this time. He stepped to the side and went back to his water. "Neurospace. I can teach you."

Celn watched her throw, inner and outer bullseye; then a 17. He didn't understand the rules of darts, he just nodded as she wrote down the results on the chalkboard. "Okay. I've got time. I'm sure there's free space in the stations."

She went on to smoke him for another three games before he gave up.

By the end of the night, there were two feelings Chris had. One, he felt closer to all of them. Even Becker, who had no problem saying how he wished he'd had a chance to try out with Hawker. "You know, I'm sure he wouldn't mind having a backup pilot. You can always give it a go. I'll ask him if you want." Chris had teased, pulling out his phone. Becker didn't say no, so Chris typed it up, daring the jock-sure pilot to tell him no. THe second feeling he'd had was a sense of protectiveness. Like a pack watching out for the youngest cub. THey all seemed worried about him, dropping little hints here and there.

Around 0200, a giggling Chris had sent the text from the back of the cab; as Becker tried to steal the kid's phone while Wen kept him back. "You said you WANTED it hot shot! Now he's gonna crush ya under his boot!" She giggled.

=Hawker! We're at O'Lear's pub. Becker says he wants to try out for a backup pilot position. Incase I get put 'on suspension.' He didn't say no! Haha, you're gonna smash him.= Chris followed it up with a photo of all of them mugging for the camera while Becker sulked.

\----------------------------------------

Sometime around 1100, Chris woke up with a HELL of a hangover. He'd ended up on the floor of his room. The rest of the day he lazed about as his muscles ached and his bruises throbbed. By Friday he'd gotten back to normal, waking at 0900 and making his way through HLX-9 documentation when he'd gotten a text from Colburn. 'Engineering, room d-2.'

Coffee in hand, barely limping, Chris walked into D-2. THe room had a number of interesting pieces of equipment, looked like .. textile manufacturing? "There you are." came the Chief Engineer's pleased voice. "We're going to get you properly scanned in for custom piloting suits. As much as we'd like to keep putting you into Lee's old ones, we got the budged to run the loom. AND, to be fair, you just don't have the same kind of body layout."

 

* * *

 

The mech decided to tune into the game - a way to feel part of the action. Hawker didn't know much about baseeball, but a quick download of a guide changed that. Lee had been more into hockey, and the two had watched plenty of Blackhawks games over the years. The man even joked about starting a mech-only hockey league when he retired, and during his more inebriated moments made Hawker help him draft up rules.

The concept of sports intrigued him, and it was nice to watch a game again for the first time since... well. And it was nice that it wasn't hockey, he realized as he watched a foul came sailing down into the stands with the crowd rushing up to meet it, scrambling for a souvenir. Eight home runs later and the Cubs take the game with a 3-bagger at the bottom of the 8th. As far as he could tell, it'd been a fantastic game.

Later, a text message roused him from sleep - a little tap, almost, on the inside of his helmet. Systems onlined -  _0211?_  The mech, otherwise still as as a statue on his maintenance slab and optics unlit, cracked a smile.

_Hawker! We're at O'Lear's pub. Becker says he wants to try out for a backup pilot position. Incase I get put 'on suspension.' He didn't say no! Haha, you're gonna smash him._

Then, immediately after, a photo with stereoscopic metadata of everybody cramming their faces together, grinning like idiots. All except for Cory Becker, who was rubbing at his face in embarrassment. The visual depth information added character to the image and made Becker's reaction just that much more amusing. Hawker hoped that he'd actually get a chance to show that kid a thing or two in neurospace and it wasn't just the booze talking.

 _Tell him that I'm ready, whenever he happens to grow a pair._ A chuckle. _Now, you kids have fun and don't stay out all night_. He ended it with a grinning devil emoji.

He re-engaged his low-power mode, happy that his boy was finally having a good time.

\---

The specially-designed c-can fit Hawker like a giant metal coffin, and he was glad to finally be able to step out once they'd arrived at the clean room facility in Rockford. His optics had to re-calibrate themselves to the glaring white light that refracted off of the white linoleum floor, the glossy white walls, and the starched white labcoats of the technicians that were there to admit him. And this was only the receiving area.

Chris and one of Colburn's assistants stepped out of the passenger end of the truck, blinking in the bright light too.

"Welcome to the Mobile Fission Systems lab, Mr. Celn," said one of the engineers, reaching out to Chris for a shake before turning to the mech and the assistant, respectively. "HLX-9, Mr. Nguyen, welcome back. Now, I'm not sure how much you know about what work we'll be doing this weekend," he said, smiling and adjusting his thick glasses, "But I'll try to keep it short and sweet..."

The procedure, swapping his generation-VI pool-type reactor with an even smaller, generation-VII loop-type, was scheduled to take two 10-hour days. The benefits? Hawker's "backpack" silhouette would be slimmed down by a good 19 inches and would benefit from requiring even less cooling material due to an improved rapid heat exchange system design.

Hawker would be conscious, his energy needs temporarily met by being plugged into the grid and his entire haptic network disabled, effectively rendering him numb and paralyzed. As for relieving boredom?

"We've got a small drone frame you can occupy if you'd like, though it'd have to be wired. You can also play some games if you're into that sort of thing." Hawker eyed his pilot, knowing the kid had at least a passing interest in gaming. "Or there's always internet..."

"I guess I could try my hand at one of those shoot-em-ups," the mech said with some bemusement. Lee was never interested in the hobby, and as a result the mech hadn't ever bothered. Why? Sims and neurospace were than fantastical enough. And the physics in those things were at least  _realistic_.

"What do you think, kid?"

\---

Later, Hawker found himself strapped into a custom-fitted pipe frame that was part operating table, part gyroscope. And, like everything else around here, painted a bright, glossy white. The team doing the work were dressed in white coveralls, gloves, face masks, goggles, booties over their shoes, and every single strand of hair tucked away under a cap, which was in turn tucked away under a white hood. Nguyen was there to monitor the progress, but Chris was behind glass.

Someone standing on a gantry behind him opened up the back of his helmet and began plugging in thick cables that dangled down from the ceiling, screwing them in tight. Hawker's mind was suddenly aware of the lab's server systems like a series of doors down a hallway had opened in succession, and he was officially free to roam.

 _I'll see you in a few, kiddo_ , he sent to Chris' phone just as the manipulating arms of the frame whirred to life and he was slowly lowered into position: face-down and mere inches from the floor.

 

* * *

 

"Did you get the brief about today?" Inquired Colburn as she inspected the readouts on the equipment. THe right side of the room is a mountain of dust covers. It's obvious that the equipment is used almost never and must cost a fortune to run. THe techs are busy changing out tanks of raw material.

"No ma'am. I've been enjoying my time off by not moving much and going over HLX-9 technical information." His coffee is the perfect temperature, and Chris savored several long pulls.

"Up until now you've been in modified pilot suits. Two of Lee's, that have not been giving proper connectivity. Only 85% or so on the feedback. You may have noticed that when piloting, things felt incomplete; like your leg was asleep." Several of the machines had tags that read 'PROPERTY OF US GOVERNMENT. UNIT 04 of 10, PRODUCED BY SPECIALIZED ENGINEERING.' What ever these are, they'd been made in small numbers at great expense. "Take your clothes off Celn. You're about to get wrapped up in a fresh piloting suit. One that's actually yours."

Chris decided to finish off the drink before getting completely naked in front of Colbrun and several strangers. SOme of his oldest bruises had disappeared. Others hung around, as the crescents from every bite still made arcs over his otherwise smooth skin. As he reached for the straps of his jock, (Obviously enjoying showing off that he is a fit, thin twink), one of the techs shouted "WOAH! WOah WOah there greenhorn! Keep your underwear on, we just need you mostly nude."

Colburn looked, a sigh escaping her nose. "Get up on that big gantry, the one that has the 10 foot orange doughnut." At least Chris didn't look  _worse_.

The twink climbed up the equipment, the laid down on the smooth metal. The doughnut moved from his head to toes, slowly rotating as it scanned him with a bright green line of light. As it mapped his body, the thick cables that connected it to the other machines began to create the complex layers of the pilot suit. Layers of breathable synthetic fibers. Layers of sensors, connective wires with enough slack to be flexible. Each one positioned correctly for Chris's unique human physiology. After fifty minutes, the skin-right suit emerges from the curing oven.

"Once it's cool enough to wear, put it on. I'm not expecting you to need it, but we don't know could happen on your trip." Colburn seemed distracted, or aloof. Practically silent treatment in comparison to her normal chatty self.

"My trip?" Chris inquired, touching the suit's thick knee pads. The rubber smell strongly of chemicals, reminded him of burning oil.

"You're going with the HLX-9 to get it's reactor swapped out. Should only take two, maybe three days. Afterward it'll have enough power for 3 to 10 years, depending on power usage. You'll be along to watch and pilot it in an emergency. Shit should be wearable."

The greenhorn slid into the still warm, odorous outfit. THe fresh material clung to his body, gripping him in all the right places. Suited up with the sipper at his neck, it felt natural. Perfect. Not like how Lee's hand-me-downs sort of hugged him. "Feels good. Warm, like a heating pad all over."

"Hope you get used to it, you'll be in it for the whole weekend." Colburn grinned with an evil chuckle. "It needs to 'learn' your body. Yes you can take a shower. Rinse the suit, wipe down the interior and put it back on. And yes, you can be nude in it. Just don't flop out around here. Get packed, and you might want to wear something over that. It has almost no thermal retention."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris had gone commando after getting to his room. Colburn was up to something, he just didn't know what. And the suit! It still hugged him perfectly, a second skin.  
Thankfully the ride up had been calm and devoid of incident.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris checked his phone, then looked around the room. THere is a rather dull looking robot in a gantry, roughly the side of a normal human. Faceless and genderless; it's dark grey frame mixed with bits of chrome and milky-while plastic.

"Geez. Guess I'm going to get to see what makes you tick. I bet it's boring looking." He put his hands on the glass, peering down into the room. His gloved hands made little squeaky sounds on the transparent material. He'd love to pit Hawker against Tsung in some team deathmatch.

 

* * *

 

He wandered around for a little bit, feeling out the place. It was all uninteresting, and most of it off-limits to him besides, so the mech headed for some new accommodations.

First thing he noticed is that the drone body fit more like a sock puppet than a second skin, with the rest of him "exposed". Still, it would do. Right? Hawker disengaged the latches holding the 300-pound thing to its rack and stepped out, looking over at the thing.

"This is terrible," he muttered flatly, voice coming out over a  _speaker_. It didn't even have a vocal modulator! He ham-fisted his cybernetic consciousness into every possible component of the little body and found that it was a poor facsimile of what he was used to. Even the little camera in the face whirred and clicked as it went in and out of focus. He finally lifted his monocular gaze to the young man standing at the window, his body handsomely hugged by a deliciously utilitarian piece of technology. "Oh, well look who we have here."

Not  _nearly_  as imposing as he was used to being, but... the mech was not necessarily one to walk away from a moment of adversity.

 

* * *

 

 _"Oh, well look who we have here."_  Chris turned, arms dropping to his sides as he walked toward the thing that Hawker is puppeteering.

Puppet is a good word, thick black cables emerged from the back of the android and fed up into a spool that hung over the gantry. THe robot stood exactly 6 feet tall, still 6 inches on Celn. The rookie stood before his 'diminished' partner with a wry grin on his face. One hand on an elbow, the other stroking his chin. THe fresh flight suit left nothing to the imagination; every adorable inch of the Twin pilot is on display. THe kid's coat and the small duffel sat on a chair in the room, having come into the observation chamber.

"I was right, your voice is  _terrible_  through a speaker." He leaned left and right, taking in the full sight of his repackaged lover. "If you could smell right now, You'd know I've got that buried-oil scent of fresh rubber." Then, he experimentally put a hand on the chestplate of the small Hawker, and pushed.

Unsurprisingly, the robotic body leaned back before the mechanisms within the ankles brought the machine up to level again. What Hawker though about Chris having the power to push him around?

 

* * *

 

 _"I was right, your voice is_ terrible _through a speaker."_

He was about to say something, but the logic centers of his DF2-enabled mind were suddenly overwhelmed as Chris drew near enough to push him.  _Push_  him! The hand felt all wrong, the strength it had compared to what he was used to -

Skinny little legs stumbled to catch his measly weight before toppling over like a plastic toy.

"Oh hoh, we've got a big shot now, do we?" He tried to smile through his voice though it was damn difficult. This whole thing was going to lose its novelty pretty quickly, wasn't it? "My size all that's keeping you in line, huh? Hm, we'll see... about  _that_." The drone body was quick, at least. He had Chris by the wrists, suppressing the headache-inducing errors he was getting about the human being  _too big to make sense_  and shoved him against the wall with a hard, metal knee keeping his shapely thighs apart as the camera-optic took in the new suit.

"Maybe this body's not so bad after all..."

 

* * *

 

It's not that Hawker's normal body is slow, but it is LARGE. And with that size, you see the motion of a limb, feel the air displaced as a mass of metal game rushing toward you. The little mech body is surprisingly fast, gathering his arms and yanking them upward with enough force to make his shoulders ache. Chris grunted, able to exert enough effort to make the mech's hands move apart! A few seconds is all he had, then it easily crossed his wrists, holding them in it's left hand as the right came down. The knee between his thighs is exciting, Chris felt his blood pumping.

The android moved like hawker did, it had the same confident swagger. THe same care with how it put down each footstep. At that size, it's direly important not to crush anything unless you mean it. Still Chris isn't exactly helpless.

"I like you down to earth. I think we ought to see about getting you something this size to tromp around the station with." He slid his left leg along the inside of the robot's, wondering if there were sensors to feel the sensation.

"You're still on a leash." he nodded, indicating the cables that were halfway spooled out. "I think this frame is missing some important equipment. And depth perception." He playfully tapped his forehead to the face plate, leaving a smudge.

\--------------

"How long?" spoke one of the observers, all of them watching from cameras not in the room. The Observation chamber Chris Celn stood in is made almost entirely made of transparent material. Some metallic girders, the floor, and the metal doors were the only things blocking the multi-angle view of the room.

"53 seconds." spoke a second.

"That's.. not exactly your normal aggression." said one from a remote location.

"No. Kid's not afraid either." said a fourth.

"His heart rate's up though. The biosensor readouts are fantastic." said the second.

"You had a long enough drive to calibrate them." retorted the first.

"So now what?" Pretty sure this answers some raised issues." said a fifth.

"See how far it progresses. If this ends up being a case of Ai & Human relations, then we've made a mountain out of a molehill." summed up the original speaker.

 

* * *

 

The drone has more angles than Hawker was used to, like it was made from two-by-fours and popsicle sticks. But it made Chris' discomfort at the square, straight-lined knee joint just that much more. A finger traced down the zipper along his spine. The mech growled in frustration at not being able to feel it.

_"I like you down to earth. I think we ought to see about getting you something this size to tromp around the station with."_

"I could tie you down and fuck you in your own rack," the mech said quietly, square head leaning in close to Chris' ear. "Fit all my fingers around your neck."

_"I think this frame is missing some important equipment. And depth perception."_

Clunk.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Hawker used the drone's free hand to do something he'd been wanting to do, though: snake his fingers through the short-cropped hair and jerk the sensitive filaments taught between the fingers of a sudden fist, yanking Chris's head back. Metal knuckles dug into his scalp. He left no room for play, his grip was too complete.

"Was that sass I heard, scabber?"

 

* * *

 

Hawker might not have felt the zipper, but there's no way he could miss Chris's reaction. The boy gasped, chest lifting up as the machine played to the things he enjoyed so much. Being powerless, under the control of another.

 _"Fit all my fingers around your neck."_  A hard shudder and through the greenhorn, and the lump in his suit grew down his left leg. "Fuck Hawker, sometimes I think I'm the AI the way you mash my buttons!" He firmly presses his leg against the puppet-droid, enough to make the bot need to re-adjust. He could sense the frustration, the way that Hawker grabbed at him, at least his partner would notice him struggling.

Chris half-lids his eyes at feeling metallic fingers in his soft hair, saving the way they slid over his scalp. The sudden jolt had him YELP! Tears formed and dripped down from the corners of his eyes. His breath hitched, then he licked over his lips and huffed. Neck exposed, he inhaled a sharp hiss.

"You aren't supposed to reward sass, Captain." He smirked, despite behind held quite immobile. "So no Sir, I'd say it wasn't."

\-------------------------------------

Observer one lit a pipe, shaking the match out once the tobacco began to glow. "That's unexpected."

"The Deep Field 2 is absolutely working on wiped protocols." said two.

"What about the new pilot? I don't need biosensors to see what's happening." spoke four.

"Did you read his full background?" inquired the remote observer.

"Skimmed it." admitted five. "He'd either end up with a hero complex, or repeat what'd been done to him."

"Or, take a third option. Be a hero, and relive it." one added with a puff on the pipe.

"Seem well-matched then. All in favor of marking this as resolved, pending further developments?" Within moments, 4 to 1 for closing the investigation.

"Good, on to the issue with the USS Saratoga.."

 

* * *

 

He could hear, he could see, and that was about it. But he could  _hear_  Chris's breath sluice roughly down his little windpipe, he could  _see_  the bobbing of the Adam's apple, the wince, the wetness at the corners of his bright eyes.

Hey, maybe the kid was onto something.

Then that cheeky little grin that he wanted to lick and chew right off!

_"You aren't supposed to reward sass, Captain. So no Sir, I'd say it wasn't."_

The droid had practically no codpiece to speak of; it was just angular enough for him to shove roughly up against the kid's ass, knowing that, even in this dumb body, he was capable of coaxing blood into all the right places.

But when Hawker went to kiss at his pilot's painfully exposed neck and realized, all too late, that he couldn't. He stopped, let his monocular face come to rest on Chris' shoulder, and the speaker emitted a long, self-defeated chuckle. "I don't  _have a mouth_ ," he said, releasing the human at the absurdity of it. "Don't think you're off the hook, meatboy. I'll get pushups out of you for that one later."

 

* * *

 

Clad in tight fitting rubber, held fast by his partner, new aches. Chris rested wanted to move, he tried to put his chin on the puppet-bot's smooth domed face. He could perhaps move a fraction of an inch before the thousands of hair follicles shrieked with pain, and he drew in a shuddering gasp. His forearms flexed, biceps pushing out against the rubber. It holds tight enough to his body that as he breathes in, it pulls in to show off where his abs are, and where his ribcage beings.

_"I don't have a mouth."_

Chris had no doubt that if Hawker had full equipment in his current size, that their sexual tension would have erupted into multiple messy conclusions. He grunted in the sudden need that had built up, feeling the same deflation in the inability for the down of the to come to a satisfying conclusion. When released he didn't rub his wrists and cry, he didn't carefully stroke over the ache that tingled along his scalp.

He dropped an arm over the shoulder of his partner, reaching up to tug playfully on those thick cables. "Deal. Actually didn't feel dead when I woke up this morning, which is nice." His other hand came up, and he sensuously ran his thumb down the center of that faceplate. Squeeeeeak. "Looking forward to healing up, be fun to see what you do to a clean canvas."

Stepping back, his rubbery body looked slightly mechanical, as if he'd been dipped in technology. "Seeing as we've got a couple of days to work out our boredom, let's play some Halo 12. If Tsung is on, I want to see how well you do against her." He walked over to the TV, pausing for a moment as he reached for the remote. His sleek shoulders and perky rear filled out the backside of that suit.

"Do you feel like you're being watched?" He looked out the windows, but aside from the technicians doing their best to disassemble Hawker; there is no one. "Just.. huh. Kinda weird that they stuck us up here." TV on he flumped down on the couch, scrolling through options.

"Any graffiti in that body? 'Killroy was here' on the processors?" He brought up the game, picking up a controller. "Allright; whoever wins a round gets to ask the other a question. Or a Dare. Dares work too. You up for a little bonding with your pilot?"

 

* * *

 

"What's that smell?" Kole asked, sniffing the at the air in the mech's suite. "I noticed it when I talked to him the other day, but I guess I didn't think much of it."

Colburn took one short whiff, and scanned the space for only a second before her eyes settled on the red towel on the floor in the corner. She put two and two together pretty quickly, not even needing to investigate that further. "That's what Hawker's  _fluid_  smells like."

Kole made a face, hands on his hips. "His..!" The sergeant cut himself off, exhaling sharply out his nose, rubbing at his face, then looked around for something to kick. That something was one of the supports for the mech's oversized desk. "Dammit, Colburn! Why didn't we see it! Why didn't...!"

"Because we trusted him too much!" snapped the Chief. The picture of Hawker pushing Celn to the floor of the motor pool and yelling, baring his teeth like a Grizzly out for blood, came to mind.

"Hawker's our heavy hitter, Cora," Kole said, upset enough to use her first name. "We'd need a team of four HLX-7s just to replace 'im. And Celn..."

"Celn's in denial. He's protecting the AI because he put all his eggs in Hawker's basket. He thinks his career and his future depend on putting up with this shit." She paused, sucked in a breath. "When he gets back, you need to pull him aside and tell him that his career isn't going  _anywhere_ , that at the end of the day, they both answer to  _you_. If we give him the space, he might be able to pull himself out."

The rumble of a small engine sounded behind them, along with the irritating  _beep beep beep_  so characteristic of construction equipment. The cherry-picker was here, and so were the electricians who would be installing the surveillance equipment.

Colburn waved the small crew in. "Which is why," she continued, speaking quietly as Kole drew nearer, "We won't give them any more opportunities to be alone."

"I got one question, Chief," Kole muttered, scowling deeply. "Why in the hell did you leave that shit in there?"

"I'm still learning too, Gideon," she shot back. "I figured that you cut off a guy's dick while he's under and he's liable to  _notice_. No matter  _who_  he is when he wakes up."

"Is that... stuff at least safe?"

"You'd think I'd let him anywhere near 42 if it wasn't? It's dimethicone. A silicone lubricant thinned with water."

"No wonder I recognize the smell," Kole grunted, then turned his attention toward the crew. "Yeah, yeah. Right up there. Yeah, the door. Above the door."

Quietly again: "I wanna give them one last chance to come clean, sir," Colburn said. "We confront the both of them. I'll talk to Chris, you talk to Hawker, then we bring everybody together in a nice little pow-wow and lay it all out. See if we can't force  _somebody's_  hand before we get the DOJ involved."

"Sarah, it's worth a shot."

\---

Back in Rockford, Hawker had released his much more evenly-matched pilot from his pin against the wall. Already he missed his own body, missed what it could  _do_. Missed the way Chris felt against real sensors. Whatever, it was just a weekend.

_"Deal. Actually didn't feel dead when I woke up this morning, which is nice."_

"Don't get used to it," was the smug retort. Distantly he felt weight on the thing's shoulders; Chris' arm had come to rest around them like they were  _totally besties_. Out in the clean room, Hawker's body groaned faintly. His very attractive, very delightfully engaging little pilot was  _killing him_  right now. However, the big grump couldn't imagine having it any other way.

_"Looking forward to healing up, be fun to see what you do to a clean canvas."_

...And that was why.

"I'd like to see what you could look like with a little more premeditation," he said, letting the drone's fingers casually brush over the bulge in that brand-new suit as he took a few steps back. Hawker didn't want to see the kid wear anything else ever again.

_"Seeing as we've got a couple of days to work out our boredom, let's play some Halo 12."_

"It may be hard to believe, but I haven't ever touched one of those video game things." Then, deadpan: "I prefer shooting real people. You're going to have to your your boss the ropes, it looks like."

_"Do you feel like you're being watched?"_

He scoffed. "42's crawling with cameras. What I'm  _not_  used to is privacy."

_"Just.. huh. Kinda weird that they stuck us up here."_

The mech honestly thought nothing of it. "The precinct belongs to the city, the MFT Lab is a Department of Defense installation. They've got their way of doing things, and it doesn't always make any sense." He glanced outside at himself: cables poured out his backside while the team of technicians, looking like bizarre snow monsters, had already managed to remove the armor plating covering his back, and were taking great pains to set the enormous and heavy pieces aside in some kind of order.

Chris had flopped down on the couch in front of the TV, looking better by the  _minute_  in that Chris-shaped rubber cocoon. Hawker was glad he was paralyzed out there, otherwise he might be showing his own chub.

_"Any graffiti in that body? 'Killroy was here' on the processors?"_

The mech laughed. "No, but..." He created a little file, tucking it away in the firmware that ran the pelvic servos.  _Chris' ass was here/_. "...there is now." He followed his charge over to the sofa and carefully sat down, quite unused to the whole idea of sitting on soft, uneven things that yielded to weight. When he got his bearings, he scooted in closer to Celn, letting their knees touch as he fired up the game. If it was in stereoscope Hawker couldn't tell with that one damn camera-eye, but it wasn't really any matter anyways, as he quickly discovered that he could sink himself right into the game environment. No controller necessary.

"Truth or dare? Don't think I've played that one either, but you should know me by now. I expect to  _win_."

_"You up for a little bonding with your pilot?"_

The drone's head cocked to the side a bit and he stroked up the kid's thigh, letting that hand give a squeeze just beside that enticing swell in the rubber. "Who said anything about bonding? I'm here to kick your ass," he said with a laugh.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kole held a camera in his hands, it was a strange thing, big lens and almost nothing else except screws and a single port for a connector. "And you're certain Nine wouldn't see these? He can count the hairs left on my head in three seconds."

Colburn chuckled, a smile pulling back her lips. "He won't notice because there'll be nothing to see. We're putting them in behind screens or dark plastic panels. And we're installing two in his alcove to cover the places the normal cameras don't cover."

At 52, Kole's shaved head could wrinkle up impressively when concerned, which it hadn't stopped sense they'd discovered the evidence. "And what about data transmissions? He can intercept wireless on the fly."

"Fiberoptic. Literally. The light from the room is captured by the lense and goes down cables. Outside the 'office' we're putting in a box. That'll be plugged into an ethernet cable, the storage server sits in my office. For now, only you and I will have access." She outlined the plan to spy on the exceptionally advanced mech.

"So.. not even trying to fool him, going low tech?" He placed the camera back with the others. Already the crew is busy putting in the first one behind one of the hundreds of monitors.

"I'd put a periscope in if I had the opportunity." Her voice is tight, she couldn't get the situation out of her mind. "Except I don't want anything that could move, Nine would sense the change in air pressure."

Kole held a length of bubble wrap in his hands, liberated from the equipment cart. Starting at the top right corner, he began to methodically pop each and every one down the row. He calmly walked to stand next to the chief engineer, his voice nearly silent. "Thinking about what Nine told me. In this light.." snap pop plick, the bubbles burst as he white-knuckled them into oblivion.

"Don't worry, I'll clean up in here. Nothing like seeing the kleenex in the trashcan to let you know the jig is up. Trust me, I've raised four boys." She could see the stress wearing on the older sergeant, the vein in his forehead throbbed.

"This had better work." Kole intoned, hands working aggressively through the bubble wrap. "And remind me, never do anything that requires Celn to be  _lucky_."

Despite the ugly possibilities of what'd happened where they stood, Cora couldn't help but chuckle. She caught Gideon's furrowed brow and the both started for a long moment. The need to release the combined tension resulted in the two of them laughing for a long minute. After all the kid had been through, only to end up facing this?

Sometimes, it was all you could do.

\--------------  
_"I'd like to see what you could look like with a little more premeditation."_

Chris raised his eyebrows, a hopeful grin exposing his teeth. "Oh my, did I get the captain flustered?" Hip-thrusting into the air, the fresh rubber ensuring his bulge made the rubbed audibly squeak. "Going off half-cocked, just shotgunning at the target?" he teased.

Perhaps the best part of the suit is what it represented. The black material shined with the metallic sensors, positioned to monitor every single part of Chris's body. Stripped of it's secrets, nothing below the neck would be hidden from the machine while the greenhorn wore it. What would it be like to feel that ultra-smooth material embracing his three-foot dick with Chris inside?

_"Truth or dare? Don't think I've played that one either, but you should know me by now. I expect to win."_

That one had Chris laughing, pushing his shoulder into the robot on the couch. "THe things you don't know. Man. I forget you're all business sometimes." he shook his head, then explained. "It's simple. The winner earns the right to ask a single question, and the other has to answer truthfully. Or, if the loser doesn't want to answer then he has to do a dare. Dares could be humiliating, silly or embarrassing. However, they should be quickly accomplished and done with things in the room. Daring me to suck your finger for a minute would be acceptable. Daring to me cut off my hand isn't."

_"Who said anything about bonding? I'm here to kick your ass!"_

"Oh really? Then let's just see what you can do, and you don't have long to figure this out. Tsung's on, once she gets out of her current match she'll mop the floor with you."

Hawker_HLX9 entered the tutorial as his pilot typed out a message to Tsung. He found himself in a poorly rendered environment. The view rendered at 60 fps, and ONLY where he looked. THe only other means of threat detection was a small mini-map. Five seconds in, Hawker found several forums on an AI blog where he PROPERLY learned how the game worked. Angles for tossing indirect weapons, how the different fictional firearms work, the distance that melee worked. And of course, the optimal position to teabag an opponent's corpse.

"I hope you're ready. She can kick my ass one-handed." Hawker_HLX9 and LunaChris are on red, 2Tsungdre4U as the only blue in a private arena deathmatch; best of 5.

 

 

* * *

 

The laugh felt good, but this was still bothering the hell out of him, and he was realizing that this would be one of the hardest confrontations of his career. This was their last opprtunity to get this right, though, and Kole wanted to leave as little to chance as possible. So while the crew worked, he went back upstairs to talk to one of his best detectives, bringing the bubble wrap with him and finishing it awkwardly in the elevator. While the sergeant had been around the block, and more times than he could count, it'd been awhile since he was personally involved in the minutiae of investigative work. Unless it was a high-risk, high-profile situation, he just didn't  _do_  the questioning room song and dance anymore.

He knocked on the door to Detective Costa’s office. “It’s open,” came the preoccupied voice inside.

“Hey Costa, I wanna pick your brain about domestic abusers for a minute. Got a case I’m working on and I wanna… refresh my memory about the  _type_.” The plastic found its way into the waste basket and Kole sat down.

\---

Even after downloading every bit of easily accessible information he could find about the game, he was still hideously unimpressed with his performance. If the drone had a face, it would be darkened by a heavy scowl.

“This is supposed to be  _fun_?” the mech grunted, the words appearing in the chat simultaneously. His character, some low-poly teal monstrosity, couldn’t even look straight up. The rendering engine gave him more of a headache than Chris’ dream even had.

And suddenly he was dead.

Chris was howling with laughter as Hawker’s drone body just sat there, watching as the polite, studious, and very talented miss Beth Sung positioned her character over Hawker’s dead body and repeatedly assumed a crouch above its head before he was whisked away to the starting point again.

_Oh hell no._

First order of business was to at least make it  _feel_  like he could move a little more naturally. With lightning speed he muscled his way into the game engine and shoved in a few lines of code that would allow him to render  _himself_. When he pulled out and back into the game a few seconds later, his game asset suddenly had a few more bones. He held up his Spartan’s hand to the camera, wiggling the fingers, then flashing a thumbs-up.

“It’s a start.” Then he turned to Chris, nudging his knee with his own and chuckled. “So did that one count or are you gonna cut this old AI a some slack?” he asked, fully expecting the answer to be no.

 

* * *

 

Detective Costa ended up behind a desk for a number of reasons. He is more observant then most, had an eye for detail and a fantastic memory. Of course, when about 46% of your body mass is made up of cybernetics, those things tend to go hand in metallic fist. Costa unfortunately found himself up on the wrong side of an improvised explosive in 2055. The left side of his body, from skull to foot contained silicone, steel, and polymers.

"I thought I heard your footsteps! Been a few months Sergent." Costa had a cable connected to the left side of his head, just below the ear, that ran to his desktop. His dress shirt puffed out in places where the mechanics of his body pressed out at sharp angles. "Pardon me if I don't get up, just filing a few reports." THe desk is liberally covered in papers and files, a small lamp stuck up like the lock ness monster; shining it's flight over the most recent file.

Kole wisely chose the office chair that wasn't stacked up past the back with file boxes and sat down heavily. Both sides of the office was flanked in filing cabinets, as were the walls to either side of the door. "Remind me to teach you about the paperless office sometime." he joked without much humor in his voice.

As the office door finished swinging shut, Costa brought his organic and metallic hands together, elbows on the desk. "The type doesn't change a whole lot. All of 'em have a desire to control, to have power, and to inflict pain. It's the mix of the three that changes. Sometimes it's all in the head, as they don't always want to leave physical marks. Sometimes it's just about making someone else suffer."

The solid blue of the detective's artificial eye dimmed as he leaned back. "The victim is hard to understand, and harder to heal. There's a reason why they stay with their abuser. Reasons why they keep going  _back_. Could be financial, twisted emotions, can be a lack of places to go if you're talking about underage victims."

"Tell me all about the involved parties, and ask me anything."

\--------------------

"I know damn well you would have made it count for me." he play-glared at the cyclopic puppet. "I'll give you a free pass. She got both of us anyway. Hang on a sec.." as the match loaded up for the next round, he typed to Tsung 'Hey, after this can we do some 3 on 3?' Chris flexed his fingers. As the game progressed, Chris had an annoying tendency to move in ways that made no sense! Hugging corners to abuse the 3rd person camera, snapping the sniper rifle up to his face, and picking up the energy sword when he could find it. The character started with a pistol and assault rifle, why change for something else?

"It's a game, not a simulation of real combat. You'd love Arma. I think that combat simulator game has something like twelve different ways to crawl through cover." As Chris rounded the corner he'd been camping, Tsung dropped on him from above; using her sword's short dash mechanic to kill him in one blow before desecrating his corpse. "FUCK!" he slammed the controlled into the couch with his frustration. "Damn it, she knows these maps inside and out."

'Sure thing, you noobs aren't much challenge. And that REALLY Hawker?' with nothing better to do, Chris responded. 'Yes, but he's going through at least 3 levels of interfaces. And he's never played any Halo before.'

Chris lifted up his leg, placing it atop the puppeted robot and wiggling his foot against Hawker's calves. "Pretty sure I didn't rule out distractions."

\----------------------

While the other observers had moved on, the remote onlooker had been the dissenting vote. Adding additional observations from the continued interactions.

-Pilot and DF2 have continued sexual tension.  
-Pilot and DF2 discussing means of future physical abuse; both eager.  
-DF2 dominant so far in all observed interactions. Probability that violence is completely consensual unlikely.

 

 

* * *

 

Kole raked his fingers across his scalp, which shined as brightly as his patent leather shoes in the flourescents.

"Tell me all about the involved parties, and ask me anything."

"Well," he began, not actually sure where to begin. "It's a uh... got a call about a domestic abuse sitch." When Costa raised his single original eyebrow, Kole elaborated just enough. "And no, it's  _not_  below my paygrade. The suspected perp is highly visible, the victim a little less so. Still, the media would have a field day if this got out, so pardon me for keeping a little hush-hush on the details."

"Sure thing, sir," came the easy voice of the seasoned detective.

"Perp is a big guy. Tough. Confident. Clever, but a real bruiser. And I mean that literally. The victim... let's just say that without a good weapon, there's no contest between 'em."

"You said domestic abuse, I assume they're living together, then?"

"In a sense, yeah."

"What kind of abuse are we talking? Financial, verbal, psychological...?" This sort of stuff was practically Costa's bread and butter. He could profile these kinds of scum in seconds flat.

"Physical, and maybe..." Kole wiped his eyes and let out the breath he'd been holding. "Maybe sexual."

Costa nodded gravely, leaning back in his chair until the seat back collided with a stack of banker's boxes. "And our victim?"

"Y....ounger." Not really, but it fit. "Inexperienced. I think it's a mentorship thing gone wrong."

Costa nodded, blinking his organic eye. "I see this sort of thing a dozen times a year, sarge. This one's easy: this sort of asshole gets off on control. I mean, they all do: it's always about control. But with this one, it's about presenting as a safe place to  _be_  young and experienced, presenting as someone to learn from. Only, they start teaching them dependence, low self-esteem, anxiety. They're nice one minute to sweeten up that honeymoon phase, then they turn around and start breaking things. Then they apologize, usually promising it'll never happen again. Victim believes them, and they  _keep_  believing them."

Kole nodded, recalling his criminal psychology textbooks. The Cycle. Well, that explained why Hawker  _did_  smile and play nice sometimes. Explained why Celn kept coming back for more.

"You  _sure_  you can't tell me more about this case? I could probably spare some time to help you with it," Costa suggested, strumming his fingers together. Metal against flesh.

Kole stood up abruptly. "No, no..." He waved dismissively and looked out through the blinds at the gray sky outside. Had it really started snowing again? Christ... "You know how these things go. Almost impossible to prosecute if the victim's gone full-blown Stockholm."

"Er, well, Stockholm Syndrome technically refers to -"

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

Costa threw his hands up. "Just making sure you hadn't forgotten is all, sir."

Kole suddenly flashed a smile, not wanting to let on what cards he was holding. "I'm not  _that_  old, Roman."

The detective chuckled. "Good, because I'm right behind you." A pause as their laughter faded. "Look, sir. I know it's been a while since you handled something like this. My advice, don't let it eat you up, alright? Keep your cool, and keep your eyes open. A touch, a word, could be all you need to press charges."

"Yeah... haven't forgotten that either. Thank god."

\---

_"I think that combat simulator game has something like twelve different ways to crawl through cover."_

"Only twelve?" Hawker huffed, trying out one of the vehicles. He'd never driven a vehicle in any reality, virtual or non-, and he was glad for it. "You know, I think my confidence might have been a  _little_  premature." The mech was trying his damnedest to move like he would in the real world, but the game was fighting him, thinking his interference was indicative of some kind of virus. He eventually found Chris' avatar, hoping that he'd get in and man the turret. It seemed like a sensible enough tactic in an otherwise nonsensical world. Gravity barely even functioned properly!

_'Yes, but he's going through at least 3 levels of interfaces. And he's never played any Halo before.'_

Hawker chimed in: 'Is this ALL you mech-jocks do up there? Kole CLEARLY needs to give you more paperwork.'

'Shit. Really is him!!' was the reply. Hawker barked a laugh.

'Have your fun now,' he continued. 'Because I'll be more than happy to meet you for some capture-the-flag in the crash room when I get back. 0 health lands you in the morgue.'

A round from a rocket launcher blew the Warthog into the air, and Hawker's little teal man went flying like a rag doll. '...YOLO, sir.'

The drone's head was buried in its hand, and Hawker intoned a sighing sound over the speaker. "This goddamn game..." He respawned and resolved to try Tsung's assassination tactic with the sword... thing.  _Now where the fuck is it?_

There was suddenly a foot against the drone's leg. He didn't feel it per-se, but he knew something was interfering with the limb's position. "Oh, you didn't? Well in that case." Without hesitation or ceremony, his hand came to rest squarely between Chris' shiny, rubberized thighs and began to rub.

Sure, they were on the same side, but the game just got that much more interesting as far as he was concerned.

 

* * *

 

Smoking and vaping are prohibited inside of government buildings, so Costa chewed on a plastic Bic pen to satisfy the nicotine ure that welled up as he witnessed thew worry on Kole's face. THe situation was eating the seasoned Sergeant up inside, whatever this DB case was; it IS close and  _personal_. He couldn't just let the big man go on without offering more.

"Usually this kind of thing is military." he began, "You've got a superior officer with a mean streak ten feet wide, and some fresh grunt who's been told he's got to listen and obey." The pen clacked it it migrated to the metallic side of the man's mouth. "In the military higher-ups are busy, and they're just happy someone is doing something right; and progress is being made. The grunts have just spent months getting the idea of suffering drilled into them. If you can separate the two, get the victim training somewhere else? Maybe you can help 'em."

His metal hand removed the pen as he exhaled, checking to make sure he hadn't just given himself a mouthful of ink. "The abuser, harder to deal with. They're good at finding niches where they're useful to the military. Sometimes, whole programs get scrapped or put on hold as a replacement is found." The pen went back in, the ball-point dancing in the air as he considered the situation, unplugging the cable that attached himself to the desktop.

"Ya sure you can't give me anything else? Want me to go looking around?" he offer with a kind tone, "You've got me  _thinkin'_  about this case now."

\------------------

Beth Tsung frowned. Chris wasn't where she expected him to be, he had predictable pathing. Hawker is unknown, but she didn't expect him to be much better then combat AI. Still..

..she kind was doing some kinda work with Big Nine. Her favorite work fantasy. She'd felt incredibly disappointment when she'd been tested after implanting, B-Rating. No one who knew her would dare suggest it was anything other then incompatibility; some humans just implanted better then others. And it wasn't like she couldn't pilot hawker, just that their mental connection would be like talking on the phone; unable to share more then audio and a camera-style view.

She lept over a ledge, dropping down the stairs by glitching through a map exploit. Sword in hand, she waited under the final concourse of stairs until footsteps ran past her. Then she backtracked, emerging from the shadows to come up behind Hawker_HLX9 and brain his avatar with the alien energy melee weapon.

_'...I'll be more than happy to meet you for some capture-the-flag in the crash room when I get back. 0 health lands you in the morgue.'_

She walloped from behind him for a one-hit-kill, this time having her character do the ass-shaking emote for the kill-cam.

"Hawker_HLX9 has been eviscerated by 2Tsungdre4U." spoke the in-game announcer.

'Tell you what, let's get some more people on this server. Give you two a chance at getting some kills.' Opening up the floodgates, her low-ping server began filling with people.

'And let's allow some respawns. 3 Lives each, then you're observing. Let's get it nice and crowded.'

CTF with Hawker in the crash room? Tsung snorted. Not even if she was piloting a MRAV with a head start! 'Maybe, but only if LunaChris is on my team."

\--------------------------

Chris had been watching the screen, and to him Tsung had come out of nowhere to take out his partner. "DAMN! SHe was hiding under the stairs? I didn't' even know you could get under there."

THe rubber suit had thick pads on his shoulders, knees and elbows. His groin is padded as well, but for reasons more then just protection. THe front and rear could be opened with the right commands, exposing him itne cockpit. ANd, to be fair, a pilot just might want to use a restroom without having to peel off the tight-fitting suit.

The warm bulge squeaked with each touch, the contents easily growing as a knowing metal hand brought him to easy readiness. "Hrrrf! Boss, ya sure ya wanna do that here? Pretty sure they're watching us." Chris squirmed, not stopping the robot at all. He could get used to there being a small Hawker to play with at times. A smaller Hawker in his bedroom? He'd only leave to go play with the real thing!

 

* * *

 

"Ya sure you can't give me anything else? Want me to go looking around? You've got me  _thinkin'_  about this case now."

Kole paused to think for a very long, very quiet moment. "You want some coffee? I think I'm gonna go grab some coffee real quick."

Costa cocked his head to the side, folded his arms. It would have been funny if it wasn't such a terrible place to be: Kole was an open book to the seasoned detective right now. As easy as a kid on his first time behind the table. "Sure, thanks. I'll take mine black if you don't mind."

Kole nodded and disappeared out the door.

\---

It bought him a few moments to think as he headed down the hallway to the floor's little kitchenette, where a huge pot of stale, burnt coffee sat on the warmer. Two styrofoam cups. One black, one with cream and sugar. Nobody ever expected the police sergeant to drink anything but tar black coffee, chewing on the over-roasted grounds like a garnish. Nobody expected him to be a wine guy, either.

Or to be so tore up about what was going on between his best mech and his best pilot - two of the only reminders he had of a dead friend that left a hole in the hearts of a lot of people around 42. Kole didn't want things to end this way. He really didn't. Couldn't he have a happy ending? Just this once?

\---

"Alright, I'll tell you," he sighed, setting the coffee down and closing the door. "But only because you've been here for 20 years and you're a damn good man."

Costa nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"The perp is my HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker. And my victim is the new pilot."

"...You're shittin' me."

"I'm not shittin' anybody." A pause to gather his thoughts. "Look. The DOD, the DOJ don't know yet. And when they do find out, it'll all probably get classified to Timbuktu. So if you could just..."

"Whoa. I get it, I understand. So, what's your plan, sarge?"

"So far, the plan is that we're going to tackle this as soon as the two of them get back..."

\---

_"Hrrrf! Boss, ya sure ya wanna do that here? Pretty sure they're watching us."_

Chris' squirming looked good from down here, too, even with the lo-res camera eye. But his boy's second mention of being watched prompted him to pull his hand away. One of the biggest things he learned during his time with Lee was that humans had senses that science hadn't quite figured out how to explain yet. 'Gut feelings'. 'Sixth senses'. Hawker could suspect, could weigh risk and probability, but he didn't quite have that kind of sensory intelligence, that same kind of animal instinct. Lee taught him that such input was an invaluable contribution to the human-machine bond. Lee taught him to  _trust_  human intuition.

The drone body twisted around on the couch, looking about the room with more scrutiny now. He spied no surveillance equipment, which he found odd. Not even the TV screen had a camera equipped. Behind him, Tsung wasted his idling character for the nth time.

"Can't shake that feeling, huh?"

He gave Chris' shoulder a possessive squeeze as he stood up and walked away from the game to look around the otherwise spartan room a little more closely. "Hm..."

 

* * *

 

Costa held the cup with his organic hand, the well-chewed pen tossed into the trashcan with a *clink.* The stuff made strange sensations from the sensors in his mouth. Hot, acidic, burnt. It stained the styrofoam with each slosh.

"I'm guessing that incident in the motor pool isn't just two dogs barkin'?"

Kole huffed, the only good thing about this mess was that Hawker had the decency to keep the worst parts of his abuse behind closed doors. "I wish." THe coffee is awful, but at least it wasn't he stuff from the cafeteria. "At first I thought they were adjusting. But now it seems that Nine is.."

His eyes closed and a deep inhale came, then left as a sigh.

"..A certain amount of damage is expected. If you looked at the pilots, every single one will have scrapes, bruises in strange places." Kole lead his story along.

"Climbing in and out of a metal skeleton can be hard. I have a real nice lump on the back of my right leg, from my left foot. Was in a hurry for a fresh bakery delivery. Not too hard to think what can happen around Nine, he's.." THe detective's blue eye flickered as he accessed his databanks. "..  _jesus!_  Fifteen feet and six tons?"

The detective put down his coffee and looked UP. "He's twice as tall as the ceiling in the office." He thought for a little while, the unspoken concern left in the air. What could you do if something that big wanted to hurt you? "I know Lee was built like a tank, but this new pilot, what's he like?"

Kole frowned, pulling out his phone. "Smaller." Resting his thumb on the sensor, it unlocked and he navigated to where he had Chris's file pulled up. "Five foot eight, around 150 pounds." The phone must have remembered where the Sergeant normally had been, as it auto-scrolled down to the part where the bruised and battered body of Celn lay under the scanner.

Roman picked up his coffee again and looked level, then down. "Yeah. You weren't joking about when you said the victim would need a weapon to have a chance. What kind of damage we talking about here? Smacking around? Everyone around the station saw the footage of them two of them snarling at each other. But then they kinda made up? Hell, even the pool's been seeing positive bets lately."

Both hands when up in an apologetic gesture, and he almost spilled his hot drink. "I'm not in on it. But I do like to watch where it goes."

\---------------------------

THERE! It had been an annoying exercise, slowly examining the complicated walls for cameras. Not that it is hard to find security cameras, but almost all of them had been aimed where the HLX's body lay on the floor. An overhead crane had been positioned and the Techs were busy connecting the reactor to it's hooks. Soon they might even try to extract it.

But there, subtly hidden under a catwalk was a camera aimed on the observation room. A room with big, open windows to all directions. Perhaps a room to observe into and out of? THe positions of the windows and the other few tings in the room, like the couch left to the discovery of three other cameras. There would probably be more. And a microphone could be hidden anywhere. Perhaps they could even get a feed off the body he was borrowing. It had wired connections; if there was a splitter in the output he'd never detect it.

\-----------------------------

Chris leaned back in the sofa. waiting for the game lobby to fill. He is bored as well, playing against Tsung isn't fun. "No I can't. I feel like I'm in an aquarium here." Setting the controller down on the couch he stood up as well, eyes flicking around as he tried to see something out of place. Then he walked, each step making the boot treads chirp on the solid floor.

"And no one has come by? Nothing for us to do or work on?" His cute face pulled into a frown as he looked over the gantry and the cables that spooled out to the puppet-shell.

"You and I have the same problem. We've got nothing outside of our jobs. If it's not work, then prepare for work. Test, push, get better." He exhaled sharply through his nose.

"When do you draw the line in your past? Tte point where you say, from this moment on is who I am now?"

 

* * *

 

Roman Costa chuckled. "Me neither. Never even played the lottery, believe it or not. This line of work shown me where gambling'll get you."

"I'd like you be there when we go confront him, Roman." Kole had been looking at his coffee but flicked his gray eyes upward now. "You know how to work the questions for those JDLRs."

The detective shook his head. "Oh, this is more than just a JDLR. Honestly? All you'll need to do is show him the footage and he'll crack. Won’t be able to ignore the cognitive dissonance."

Sergeant Kole nodded, finished his coffee, stood up again. Cup in wastebasket. "I’ll erm… I’ll be in touch, alright?”

“Kole, it’s gonna be OK. Davidson isn’t rolling in his grave, I promise.”

“Wouldn’t be too sure about that, detective.”

\---

_"You and I have the same problem. We've got nothing outside of our jobs. If it's not work, then prepare for work. Test, push, get better."_

The drone body stepped toward the window, watching. Under other circumstances it might be fascinating procedure to witness, but not right now; not with Chris' suspicions. "I have... a few things. Still, what defines my inner life is different than what defines a humans'. We AI are comparatively antisocial, I guess you could say. What ‘real’ or ‘enriching’ means to these old CPUs is different than what it means to gray matter.” A shrug. “I guess.”

Hawker watched the work for a few minutes, feeling suddenly a little vulnerable - a little  _accessible_. Perhaps being small had that effect. Or perhaps it was watching your body being dismantled 40 feet away in a clean room that did it.

“I spent a lot of time brooding over these past 4 months,” he admitted quietly. “I was more social with Lee. When he died, a lot of me went with him. That’s the nature of that damn bond. That wonderful, thrilling, terrifying,  _dangerous_ bond.”

The drone’s camera turned toward Chris. “You have any idea of what I’m talking about? Is that even  _possible_  with human-to-human interfacing?” A snort and he turned away toward the window again, drawing up the drone’s shoulders and folding its arms. He looked a little stand-offish. “Or am I giving myself away as an AI here?” Then, a chuckle over that little speaker. So much of Hawker’s deep timbre was lost in digital translation, but Chris’ memory of his voice ought to suffice for now. “You still wanna play truth or dare, greenhorn?”

“Oh, and... smile. I think I spotted one of the cameras right over there. One o’clock low. Looks like you were right."

 

* * *

 

_"The bond. You have any idea of what I’m talking about?"_

Chris cast his gaze out the window, then sighed. "I thought I did. They tell us about how our minds are plastic and malleable. How AIs are like basalt. We come together and the human mind adapts, filling up all the gracks and empty spaces with emotion and guesswork." He wondered about a row of dark glossy panels directly across from the observation room. Is one a hidden window? "I guess I don't have any idea. Describe it to me. What kind of bond do we have?"

_"Is that even possible with human-to-human interfacing?"_

"To an extent. Andrew and I would do it. He was B-Rated. Felt amazing when we would be together, as long as no one accidentally pulled the cord on our implants." He smiled at that memory. "But we're always fighting each other. Trying decide how to feel, which way to flow. When we're interfaced, I feel your solidity and it's a comfort. I can cling to you and know where you stand."

Yellow lights began flashing in the room with the face-down vanguard, the crane began lifting the reactor from the 15 foot long body. They got it a whole foot out before stopping and walking on the mech; disconnecting more cables and attacking temporarily cooling lines.

"Yes. Although, I think we both need to open up a little. We both want this to work. Us. Both professional and personal, yeah?" His gaze whipped to where the Hawker had indicated. His eyes narrowed until he spotted the one aimed at them. Then he smirked, turning his rubber-clad body to gaze at his partner.

"I'll toss a few at you, just so you have a choice." Chris began counting questions off on his fingers. "Have you ever been with a person sexually before me? How many people have you killed? and hmmm.." He smirked at the sight of the way Hawker soot, he mimicked the standoffish pose. "WHat's the worst thing you'd ask me to do when linked?"

 

* * *

 

Chris' recollection of Andrew brightened his foreprocessors like a smile would. Kids - humans! - always testing, always tinkering, always curious... almost insatiable in their desire for new experiences.

_"When we're interfaced, I feel your solidity and it's a comfort. I can cling to you and know where you stand."_

That was a compliment, and it genuinely warmed him. Too bad this damn cheap body couldn't convey hardly any of it. "That I can provide that means... a great deal to me."

In the clean room a pair of technicians pulled out a thick hose attached to a machine off to the side. They handed it off to someone standing on his back, who screwed it into place beside the reactor. A fourth tech with a wired datapad manipulated some controls, gesticulated to the team on the ground, pointed, head bobbing with words that neither of them could hear.

The liquid sodium was contained entirely within the reactor unit itself, but Hawker's coolant needed to be drained and replaced with a composition more compatible with the gen-VII replacement. That alone would probably take the better part of 2 hours to drain, flush, and replace. The drone body turned from the view - he'd been there, done that, before.

_"We both want this to work. Us. Both professional and personal, yeah?"_

The drone's fingers rubbed at its chin, arm still crossed. Hawker nodded, looked away. "I want this more than I've wanted anything in a while." He stepped over to the sofa, leaned against it. "What Lee and I had was good.  _Great_. This is just what's next for me. I suspect that we have the potential to be great too."

_Or damn near perfect, even._

His arms were still crossed. If you gave him a leather jacket and put a cigarette between his metal fingers, he might've looked like a robotic James Dean. Cop Without a Cause.

_"Have you ever been with a person sexually before me? How many people have you killed? and hmmm.."_

Hawker 'eyed' his partner as that mischief crept back across his softly handsome features. Chris' expressiveness would never cease to amuse and endear.

_"WHat's the worst thing you'd ask me to do when linked?"_

The AI closed the distance between the two of them, putting his heavy metal arm around the kid's shoulders like he'd done before. He started with the obvious. "Discharged a weapon 1,897 times. Assisted in 203 high-risk arrests. Killed 114... 9 without the use of weapons.

"As for sex... if I have, then it was before I transferred to Chicago. As for the rest? That's for me to know," he said, pulling his arm away and running the fingers down Chris' spine, letting the drone's hand come to rest at the small of the human's back. "The thing about 'the worst thing'... is that I wouldn't  _ask_. Which is why it's not happening."

 

* * *

 

_"That I can provide that means... a great deal to me."_

Chris wrapped an arm around the extension of his partner and hugged, before stepping back and watching what is happening below it keen interest. iIs butt looked fantastic with the padding on it. He should do squats regularly. "Man, I know it's nuclear engineering going on, but wow that's complicated! I bet there will be a whole new stack of protocols to memorize once this is done."

_"I want this more than I've wanted anything in a while."_

"I have the same feeling. I see the chance to be perfect with you. The last time we were together, I could lose myself amongst your strength. It was amazing, I felt like a god of war!" He raised his hands in excitement, the rubber on his torso suddenly squeaking in protest. "I guess you feel that way all the time."

 _"Killed 114... 9 without the use of weapons."_  Chris wanted to respond to that, he had something to share, but whatever it was died at an expression. Most would have never noticed it. But most hadn't made a study of the pilot's face a priority either. Chris's file is positively boring as an adult, almost suspiciously so.

 _"I wouldn't ask."_  Ah. That said it all really, Hawker would order his pilot. Demand terrible things from the young man. He wouldn't ask. THat would make it easier on the greenhorn, preventing him from being officially responsible. The concept is a comfort.

Behind them on the TV, their avatars idled in spawn. Occasionally being exploded before they got kicked to the main menu for being AFK for too long. Annoyed messages from Tsung popped up, ignored as they discussed more important things.

"You're far too good in bed to have no experience." Chris accused with a smirk. A gentleman never tells is the old saying, but Hawker is neither gentle or a man. The puppet still looked dangerous, Hawker having no problem portraying menace; even when just 6 feet tall.

Chris lidded his eyes as the hand went along his back, a happy sigh escaping his lips. Only after it stopped moving did he ask some more, feeling over the drone's chest. Even if Hawker couldn't feel it, he wanted to make the effort for his boss.

"What do I need to work on the most, in your opinion? Do you think all of my future pilot suits should be black? Annnd.. You need to ask me some questions. Just because we've seen in each other's brains, well. Doesn't mean everything is known."

 

* * *

 

_"You're far too good in bed to have no experience."_

The speaker barked a laugh. "I'm good at everything I do, remember?" he said, half-serious, half-joking, and half... self-deprecating. He was not above poking holes in his own ego every once in a while. " _Peerless and Fearless_  was my model's tagline, after all." Least of all not concerning the mystery equipment, which was becoming less and less mysterious by the day. The only thing continuing to hold the charade together was Hawker's deep, desperate hope that the answer was more complex than it seemed.

"The things you need to work on won't come from books or firing ranges, unfortunately. And black? Yes. It'll show off my fluid better," he chuckled.

Hawker hummed and hawwed at Chris' request to be interrogated. There were things he saw in that dream, hunches and remnants of memories he'd sensed when the two were linked. Hand rubbed a small, squeaky circle on that slim, tight back, fingers ran over the tops of hip bones.

"How many people have  _you_  killed, officer?"

 

* * *

 

Chief Engineer Colburn strapped goggles over her eyes and turned them on. The cherry picker sat on the ground and the techs that'd rigged up the cameras we checking that they'd cleaned up all the packaging mess. She could see as an AI might with the enhanced vision. Data streams appears as bands of color. Wireless signals flowed about like ripples on the surface of a pond. Colburn had recorded what the room had been like before, and she swapped between the different views.

"Looks pretty good. That fibre optic line there though, you'll have to tuck it under the conduit." She gestured where the tiny new line dangled down in places. Looking around, she pointed out another section. "Over there, that' where we stored a camera, yah?"

"Yes Chief. Want us to run a grid over it?"

Colburn considered. "Yeah. Around 8 volts, half an amp ought to do it. Adjust this equipment and I'll check again. Then we'll work on the alcove."

\--------------------------------

_"And black? Yes. It'll show off my fluid better."_

"Ugh, doing the walk of shame back up to my room after that was awful. The stuff turns white, flakes off and just makes a mess. A worse mess then when you apply it. You'd better not get any inside the suit; the lining feels way too nice on my skin." He did a shimmy, smirking as the robotic hand felt over him. "It's really amazing, the feedback through it. It's like I'm walking around naked. Even though I'm covered."

_"How many people have you killed, officer?"_

Chris paused, then looked hard at Hawker's puppet. The rookie pilot's eyes gained a dead nature that flatten out their usual sheen. "None." He answered.

BULLSHIT! Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit! The kid might be able to say it as dead honest as possible, as calm as possible, but he is lying!

"On the streets life is hard. I stabbed a man for his shoes. Beaten someone into the pavement with the reds. Way back when I was young and dumb. And I've been beaten down, stuff you've done is a massage compared to that." He held up a hand. "Not that I'm asking for worse mind you. It's been right around where I like it. I even fired a handgun wildly as I ran from a drug deal gone wrong. Heh. They always go wrong. Trust me, two parties trying to fuck the over for profit. Never goes well."

He lowered his hand and shrugged. "I guess the guy I stabbed might have died. Maybe I hit someone with a wild bullet that one time. But no, I've never killed." he lied with beautiful smoothness. He wasn't even ticking over the voice analyzers, it was only because Hawker knew the kid that he knew of those lies. That.. that meant the greenhorn  _believed_  his own lies.

"So, enough with that fun topic. Want to watch some mindless TV? Or you want to pick your pilot's brain some more?"

 

* * *

 

Hawker wanted to laugh. "Can I just say that I  _love_  the idea of you doing a walk of shame?"

_"It's really amazing, the feedback through it. It's like I'm walking around naked. Even though I'm covered."_

The mech let his foreprocessors wander into the proverbial gutter. Sure, Lee had worn something similar, but this was different somehow. Chris had... curves? He was shapely where Lee had been hard, angular. Tough. That difference was pulling him in.

_"None."_

Hawker wanted to cock a brow plate that he didn't have access to right now. He  _knew_  as sure as summer sky was blue that the kid was lying. He told a story, even. Some of it he could believe, some of it he couldn't.

_"So, enough with that fun topic. Want to watch some mindless TV? Or you want to pick your pilot's brain some more?"  
_

 

* * *

The drone body circled around, hands resting on both of Chris' shoulders. "I think I'll pick his brain," Hawker said quietly. The AI wasn't just a piece of SWAT equipment, he was a detective in his own right when Kole asked. At the very least he'd downloaded the same criminal psych textbooks that any detective worth their salt had also. The arm around the kid's shoulders tightened its hold a little. "Because I think you're lying to you superior, officer..."

Hawker knew how to spot a liar. Even though it wasn't exactly in his job description, it'd been easy in recent years as compared to those previous. He theoretically knew how to conduct himself in the interrogatio room.

"So I'll ask you again. How many people have you  _killed_ , officer?" His arm held tight to that fleshy body. "This is off the record, if that helps,  _kiddo_."

 

* * *

 

"The walk back to the room was terrible! My jockstrap itched, that stuff dried to a white powder and flaked off all over the floor. I had to scrub the heck out of the collar. It still kinda smells like you."

Chris watched as the thick cables spooled back up, then extended as Hawker's puppet walked around him. It stood before him and gripped his shoulders tight, pulling his rubber-clad body up close.

_"Because I think you're lying to you superior, officer. How many people have you killed? This is off the record, if that helps, kiddo."_

Fuck.

Hawker  _knew._

"Did you read my file? Is it in there?" The cyclopic eye of his partner's body didn't so much as move. "Look, it .. it's not like you'd think. It happened in the winter. THe day before I got picked up..."

"When it's that cold, sleeping is a problem. The shelters had been closed because of the war in the streets. If you didn't have a place to go, or even some kind of place to hang out with other's it's hard. The reds were gone by then, just three of us left. The other two were so tired, they decided a dumpster on top of trash bags would be fine. I was on watch." He exhaled, looking down at his left hand. The one with the repaired fingers. "Not for trouble, but for a dump truck. If you get scooped then you'd die in the garbage masher. I kinda remember just standing there, the bit air swirling all around me."

"When I lifted the lid for a turn sleeping.. they were gone. Frozen Solid. Blue. My best friends, guys who'd I'd known forever. We always thought we'd make it somehow." Chris sniffed, wiping his nose. "They'd stuck with me. Followed me. I don't know why, maybe they thought I had a plan or something. But.. I emptied their pockets and went on."

"I was so high that night. I knew I would die. I didn't even have anyone to keep warm with. Everything in that part of town was closed up. I think I planned on .. I dunno what I was thinking." he swallowed. "I had a knife. I'd used in fights, used it to threaten. That little hunk of steel earned me more then I could ever have imagined. Just pull it out, look mean, and you'd have a wallet!"

"There always were guys in piles of blankets and rags on the street corners. I don't know how they survived. I remember the blood coming from my hand. It dripped out, freezing before it hit the snow. Little gems." he sighed. "I guess they musta been undercover cops. Good thing the one I stalked up on was. Otherwise, I'd have straight up murdered him for the blanket he had."

 

* * *

 

Hawker listened with all the intensity of a detective. Chris was hiding things - and maybe it was becoming obvious that he could, what with being the class that he was. With Lee there'd been very little to hide. But now: it seemed that there was more.

_"Look, it .. it's not like you'd think. It happened in the winter. THe day before I got picked up..."_

"You sure about that?"

If Hawker knew anything about questioning, then it was that you sometimes had to lie to get what you needed. Pretended that you had enough to make an arrest in order to get a perp to spill the beans. Chris was clever - but in due time he'd gain  _experience_.

His fingers held fast.

"How'd it feel, Chris? How'd it feel to watch that pain, to watch that life drain away?"

_Maybe he'll know what you feel._

 

* * *

 

_"How'd it feel, Chris? How'd it feel to watch that pain, to watch that life drain away?"_

Chris thought about that for a long time. He had.. he had  **THE**  look! He wasn't telling everything, not even here. But there is no doubt that his pilot is replaying that moment in his mind.

When he'd killed someone. Chris didn't have access to a gun, whatever he had done had been  _PERSONAL_. With his own hands.

"I realised what I was. What all of us.. us humans are." he corrected himself. "Weak fleshy bags of meat. So fucking fragile it's not even funny. A little knock to the head and we go down. A small wound in the wrong place and we die. A little electricity, and we're paralyzed." his gaze came back up, meeting the look of his partner.

"That's why I like you so much Boss. You aren't weak like I am. You're unstoppable and as long as you're watching out for me, I'll be alright." And then he grinned. "And you know just how much I can take. You want me around for a long time."

 

* * *

 

The mech would have cocked a brow plate, but settled for tilting the drone's head just so as Chris spoke. Hawker thought that the misanthropy had just been dirty talk: it looked like this was coming from someplace genuine, though.

_What's going on in that head of yours, kiddo?_

_"You're unstoppable and as long as you're watching out for me, I'll be alright."_

Hawker let Chris go and took a step back. The solid parts of the much more human-shaped feet made little clicking sounds when it hit the linoleum. "'Course I want you around for a long time, kid. But you need to understand that I  _am_ stoppable. And the last time I was stopped my pilot got his spine blown out." Out of habit his finger tapped at the place on his chest where the cockpit would be.

Chris' smiles hid something dark and ugly, that was for sure, and it wasn't just the memory of three fingers sheared off by the sharp edge of a dumpster lid.

"Those gangs are getting fancy tech," he said. "And I'm getting more stoppable by the day, which is why we're here. 18% reduction in the risk of being turned into a cancer bomb if a bad enough hit disrupts the fissile material, and a 23% decrease of the chance a hit like that even landing at all."

A low chuckle. "Yeah, I do want you around for a long time. I want the  _both_  of us around for a long time." Hawker trailed a finger up the side of Chris' neck, then wrapped his fingers around it. "I intend on being able to beat you black and blue for at  _least_  another 15 years, officer," he said with a smirk. He let go and gave that pert ass a loud, firm  _smack!_

"Let's keep playing, though. Truth: what is the most fucked-up thing  _you_  want from a two-story killing machine? Or, truth: what are you afraid of most?"

\---

Over at the Tribune headquarters, a writer sat at his desk, wracking his brain. There was hardly anybody there, most writers worked from home on the weekends, but James McConnell tried to take his job a little more seriously than those damn clickbait op-ed types. No, James was a  _real_  journalist, and he  _refused_  to settle for the latest personal scandal of Chicago's rich and powerful, or the blandly pedestrian mismanagement of city resources, or even - and it hurt him to think this - the temporarily over-reported smuggling situation.

He needed something new. Something fresh.

James flipped through local press releases from the past month to see if there was anything there to follow-up on. A warehouse was closing its doors, leaving 800 without work - nope, Novak got that story. Some actor was trying rehab  _again_  after drunkenly pissing on some lady's car in broad daylight - tabloids had picked that one clean already. City water and power were to be digging up a stretch of road in front of the hospital for a month - yawn. CPD's precinct 42 was holding trials for new mech pilots and...

James didn't even need to finish the headline for that one. 42 had the HLX-9, didn't it? The same mech whose pilot was killed in the line of duty back in July, right? Lora had reported on that one - well, that  _series_  of articles. The gunfight that put that officer in a coma had been a big deal on its own, but the funeral was highly visible too. A lot of eyeballs on that story. People loved reading about 42's 'Big Nine', and James was sure that they'd probably love to read about who was filling in the shoes his old pilot had left behind. This was going to be a slam dunk.

With a smile on his face, James pulled up the number for the station's media relations office and wrote himself a reminder to give them a call first thing Monday morning.

 

* * *

 

As the mech's fingers wrapped coldly around his neck, Chris stood upright. Another part of him stood upright as well, bulging out the suit's groin. He began to make a soft, happy whine as he's told he can look forward to more then a decade of proper abuse from the heavy machine. Rubbing his hands over his neck, he yalps! as metal meets rubber on his butt. He stepped right up to that puppet, putting his thigh between those legs and pressing on the codpiece.

"I guess 15 years is the best I can expect." he teased, as if it wouldn't be enough time. "And I think we need to discuss aftercare. As much as I enjoy your work, you need to do a little to make me feel comfortable after you've finished a session."

He put a little kiss on that clear faceplate, smiling as he purposely rested his weight on the puppet. Affectionately toying with the cables he listened to the next two questions, he huffed and his exhale made a tiny patch of fog on that clear camera housing.

_Truth: what is the most fucked-up thing you want from a two-story killing machine?_

"Oh my. I suppose wanting a healthy relationship is pretty fucked up, if my preferred partner is a two-story killing machine." he rested a hand on the robot's shoulder, leaning back as he considered the possibilities. "I wanna jerk off in the cab while you're jerking off outside; while linked." Then, his smile turned devious. "I want.. I want to  **HURT**  someone while linked with you. I want to feel what you feel when that happens."

_"Or, truth: what are you afraid of most?"_

The greenhorn laughed, stepping back and shaking his head. "What, so you can use that knowledge against me?" He looked about a window, watching as the techs below finished removing the old reactor from Hawker's chassis. "I'm scared the bad things I did as a kid will come up and haunt me." He exhaled. "And yeah. You rejecting me is another. I know it hasn't been long but I feel complete when we're linked. I want to keep feeling that way."

\-----------------------------

Colburn finished her fifth circuit of Hawker's office. The new special fibre optic cameras were as hidden as she could make them; and they didn't show up in her goggles. She'd added a small skip to the corner of the office, 4 feet in every direction and it sat on a pallet. She'd thrown the cumrag into it with a smirk. A not-so-subtle hint that said 'I know what you've been doing.'

After one last check for evidence, they'd shut the huge door and moved onto Hawker's alcove. Here they installed two more cameras, which covered they places the normal, visible cameras didn't. She was tired of the deception,a nd when she'd gone over the footage; Hawker had no problem blocking the cameras so that he could beat his pilot just out of sight.

 

* * *

 

_"I guess 15 years is the best I can expect. And I think we need to discuss aftercare. As much as I enjoy your work, you need to do a little to make me feel comfortable after you've finished a session."_

"Working with me is like doing stuntwork. I'm  _hard on the body_ ," he laughed.

What the hell was 'aftercare' though? Antibiotics and bedrest after surgery? A quick internet search enlightened him - it was a BDSM term:  _making your sub feel safe and comfortable after a scene_. Safe, sure, but Hawker wasn't sure if he DID 'comfortable'. Still, Chris was asking for it, and the mech  _did_  want his human happy and healthy for the long haul. Then a thought occurred to him: the irony of needing to hurt and needing to dominate, but being dependent on the recipient. Hm, even in meatspace Chris held the cards.

"I can... try my best," he acquiesced. "You'll have to let your boss know what you need, alright?"

Hawker wondered how their antics would appear to their mystery onlookers. They were playing on the knife's edge, that was for sure - pinning him against the wall, wrapping a hand around his neck, the body language  _oozing_  with thinly veiled kinetic  _potential_  - and the mech knew that the surveillance was only adding to the thrill of acting out these little PDAs of theirs. It felt too good to stop, and they were on Kole's shit-list anyways.

_"I wanna jerk off in the cab while you're jerking off outside; while linked."_

The two were close. Touching. Chris was almost draped on him like a shiny black curtain. It only made sense to hold their hips against each other with a metal hand to the kid's ass. God, the mech couldn't wait to get back into his own damn body and feel him up with his own sensors. To knead and squeeze and hold him like the delectable little plaything he is.

"That can  _definitely_  be arranged," he said with a low, seductive laugh.

_"I want.. I want to HURT someone while linked with you. I want to feel what you feel when that happens."_

Hawker's drone body stood very still at that, while the hand on Chris' ass slowly squeezed tighter. Outside, his air cycling might've hitched. The mech had a strong reaction to the idea, though he was having trouble figuring out what the reaction  _was_. Images flashed in his foreprocessors of the two of them wreaking all kinds of havoc together. Chris would get to know what it felt like to crush a body under his boot, to feel the bones break, the organs rupture, to feel the blood run out in rivers. He would know what it felt like to literally hold someone's life in his hand, and to snuff it out like a candle flame.

Something in him  _wanted that_. Something old. But the rest of him recoiled with a cold knowing. The rest of him said  _That's completely inappropriate._

But his words betrayed even that veneer of civility too. He drew his head in close, spoke calmly, quietly: "That can be arranged too."

Chris stepped away, heaving Hawker's hands empty.

_"What, so you can use that knowledge against me?"_

Somewhere in his CPUs he grinned. "But of course."

_"I'm scared the bad things I did as a kid will come up and haunt me."_

The smiles faded away again, though. Real talk. The drone closed in again, but not to impose. "I can protect you from a lot of things, kiddo, but ghosts aren't one of 'em. I've got plenty of my own, I'm sure. At least you remember yours; I'm not sure I'd even see mine coming."

_"I know it hasn't been long but I feel complete when we're linked. I want to keep feeling that way."_

Complete? Hawker mulled the word over. He was not ever one to get wrapped up in emotions, but he was beginning to think that this may be a first for him. Still, it would be a while before he could admit the depth of his feelings in a way that went beyond themes of loyalty or talk of neurospace and platitudes about men and machines.

Complete...

"We got a good thing going," is what wound up coming out. Stoic to the end, huh? "Let's make sure it  _keeps_  going."

 

* * *

 

The young pilot and the AI's puppet had been doing a dance. They would touch, get close, then break apart. Each time there would be greater sexual tension between the two.

It is a beautiful, dangerous tango.

Then it culminates where the machine ground against its pilot, grasping his shapely-rubber clad rear. Their discussion is perverse. Their future plans? Disturbing.

The observer duly noted down their interactions. Their words. The .. terrifying intent. Unfortunately, none of it appeared as if they we go on a rampage, or attempt to lay waste to Chicago. They would be excellent partners and savor their union.

And the destruction of the occasional criminal. Logging her own opinions in the file, the observer closer the connection and paid attention to the ongoing discussion of the USS Saratoga's disappearance.

\--------------------

 _"Let's make sure it_ keeps _going."_

"Okay Boss. I'm your man. And I know you won't let up on me, no matter how much you like me." At that moment, his stomach made a gurgling rumble. "I'm gonna go see if there's anything to eat. You.. heh, you don't wander too far." He had a huge grin as he tried the doors, knowing that the robot is tethered to heavy cables.

Turns out that the cafeteria here serves Pizza.

\----------------------

After six hours Colburn was sitting in her office, installing the software on her private server. After three reboots, it began to show some signs of life. Motion triggered automatic recording, petabytes of storage, a system so primitive that fed into a recording back that lay with hundreds of other pieces of equipment in the ceiling of the motor pool. Now she could spy on nine.

She just hoped that what got recorded.. she'd be able to stomach it. Seeing those body scans! The kid might have to live through one more before they had th evidence to put a stop to this.

But then what? Hawker being stripped out? Forcible AI replacement? Modify the HLX-9 for two pilots and Jager the mech?

None of them would be as good as having their old Big Nine back.

\---------------------------------------------

The next two days went smoothly. TV, shooting the breeze and getting some much needed socialization with each other. They'd watching with interest as the old reactor is removed and the HLX sat on life-support. Then as the new and smaller reactor is fit in the same place. It nestled in the large cavity, giving the techs plenty of room to secure it with extra bracing. Then came the armor. Inches of the stuff, beyond what came with the portable reactor. THe final result also smoothed down the mech's back. Instead of having a 'backpack', the HLX now looked like it just wore heavy armor.

And to be fair, after two days Chris was looking forward to some privacy. Outside of the bathroom, he'd been told that he had to spend his time in the observation with the AI. That meant crashing on the couch as Hawker watched over him. But now the mech had retreated to it's gantry. Down below, they'd be powering up Hawker and seeing if everything really is working correctly.

 

* * *

 

_"You.. heh, you don't wander too far."_

Hawker jerked the drone's head, tugging on the cabling and grumbled. "Yeah, now I know what a  _dog_  feels like. Now go stuff that cute little face of yours. I wanna see some meat on those bones, scabber."

\---

The weekend was... nice. But also strange. Chris was right: he really didn't know what to do when he couldn't work, couldn't plan for work, couldn't prepare and practice for work.  _I'm an AI,_  he'd always told himself.  _What use do I have for a vacation?_  Hawker without something to do at 42 was like a dog without a bone, to continue with the metaphor. Not that it was a stretch.

They played more Halo - HAWKER_HLX9 actually managed to kill Tsung once by the end! - and Hawker introduced the kid to the very few TV shows that he ever dared to watch. Most of them were, to no one's surprise, true crime procedurals. You know, the classy kind with the tasteful reenactments and thoughtful narration. The mech even felt in the mood to catch a saturday night hockey game, explaining the rules, the positions and plays to his partner. After a little prodding, he revealed it'd been Lee's favorite game. That small admission felt good, he found.

\---

By sunday evening, though, the pair were bored and restless.

"It's been about 18 months since I was here last, but they never made Lee  _sleep_  in here," Hawker grunted as he stared out through the glass into the clean room as they did their final debugging and integrity checks. The new reactor core had been fired up 6 hours ago; they wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly before they turned the mech loose.

Hawker couldn't wait to get out of this awful little body, and he waited with the proverbial baited breath for them to give him the go-ahead for resuming occupation of the HLX-9.

It was almost 8 o'clock before he got the ping, followed by a thumbs up signal from one of the technicians outside.

The drone turned to Chris, giving him one last smack to the rear, before heading back to the gantry. "See you on the other side, kid."

\---

An hour later and Hawker, in full 15-foot regalia (though weighing almost 400 pounds less), stepped out of the clean room. It felt good to be big again. And heavy. And treacherous. It also felt good to be  _clean_. Every square millimeter had been washed, vacuumed, and sprayed down with very expensive cleaning solutions. He was so clean that his matte paint almost shone.

Chris, Nguyen, and a few others walked up to assess the handiwork, which, as far as he could tell, was superb.

His optics went straight to Chris, though. "How's the weather down there, short stuff?" he said, flashing a picture-perfect smile. "You wanna try headbutting me again?"

Colburn's assistant and the techs spoke for at least another twenty minutes while they waited for the truck to arrive. 'The Care and Keeping of Your Newly Upgraded HLX-9', more or less. He wanted to get the hell out of here already!

 

* * *

 

 

 

If awake, alert and talkative Chris is fascinating, then sleeping Chris is a study in observation. Twice that weekend hawker had unlimited access to the resting pilot. THat cute body wrapped in supple leather and electronics.

While Hawker was stuck in that limited, bound frame. Touching along that face, sliding a finger into those sleeping lips. He could only watch, but not feel.

It just wasn't fair!

\------------

Chris found Hocky to be fun. There'd been two tights and one had been fairly bloody. "And that's allowed? Just duking it out on the ice?" The mach assured him it was, and an integral part of the sport. It didn't matter that the pilot had no idea what was going on. It didn't matter they they'd spent more time picking plot or procedure holes in the True Crime TV shows. They'd shared their limited social and personal lives.

Chris knew he'd need to find some hobbies for Hawker, ones they'd be able to share. Could a mech get into wargaming?

\-----------

Late on Sunday though things were getting back to normal. Hawker boomed again, both in voice and footstep. Chris stood with the others, talking quietly with Nguyen. "He looks good. Did he always have those subtle patterns on his paint?"

The tired technical engineer nodded the affirmative. "Yeah. He kinda fell into disuse with Lee gone. I can't tell you how good it feels to see him back up and running. Working on the HLX-9 is fantastic. I love that we can keep improving him like this, it's a fun challenge."

They watched as the mech did a few tests, including a few runs of getting his reactor to high output, sending power into the building itself.

"Yeah. It was really strange with him small. I think I like it though. He needs a human-ish sized frame he can remote into and tromp around in." Chris spoke, leaving out the part how said frame would be in his bedroom and fuck his brains out; if the rookie had anything to do with it.

"I think he mighta had something like that once? I'm not sure, have to ask the Chief about it."

Chris grimaced. THeir little vacation is over, there is music to face back at home. "Could I ride in Hawker on the way back?"

"Nope, Chief's orders! You're stuck in the cab with me. You wouldn't want to anyway, when he's in a C-Can. He's probably claustrophobic anyway." THen he went to help the other Techs disconnect the big bot after the final checkup.

Chris pulled the collar out of the jacket's pocket. It smell of his boss still. Even now, when he flexed the fabric bits of white would fall out of the fabric like snowflakes. He needed to really soak it. A battery check told him there ws about a quarter life left. With a sigh he put it away, he'd wear it home.

_"How's the weather down there, short stuff? You wanna try headbutting me again?"_

"It's chilly, what would you expect for October? And I'll pass on the headbutt. Now that you've got a durasteel alloy head again, I think you might win even if you didn't move!"

THe pilot strolled up to the big robot, smiling right back. FOr a brief moment he wondered what it'd be like if no one was around. If they didn't have to be professional.

If Hawker would even bother putting his cock away? Would he just strut about with it on full display, slapping off his armored thighs?

"So, you feel normal again? You sure you won't miss being just a little taller then me? I guess you could just have a lay-down. But I think I like how you look cleaned up." He lead on with normal patter, joking with his Captain like normal cops did.

Be normal, look as ordinary as possible. It made everyone else comfortable. Sure they would respect his size and rank, but what Chris needed to do; and keep doing was be an ambassador. Show that Big Nine is a great thing for the Chicago PD. And some of that, meant shooting the breeze when others listened. Soon enough the truck rolled up and they were on their way back home.

Where Kole and Colburn were no doubt going to have some choice words for the pair.

 

 

* * *

 

The output test had been some good fun, even if been required to remain stationary. He stood still, concentrated, spooling up his internals, revving, downshifting, increasing temperature, blasting away scalding air... 200C... 230C... 265C... in about ten minutes he'd reached his higher-limit core temperature of 320 degrees celcius, and was generating a good 80 decibels of noise. The air that rushed from his aft vents could have come from an oven.

Hawker felt  _fantastic_. New fluids surged through him; it almost felt like he had more power, though he knew it was the quarter of a ton that'd been shaved off in weight that was making him feel leaner and meaner. At top running speed, he'd probably gained a few MPH from that alone too.

_"Now that you've got a durasteel alloy head again, I think you might win even if you didn't move!"_

"Yeah, I hear you don't wanna hit a parked car either," he laughed.

_"So, you feel normal again? You sure you won't miss being just a little taller then me? I guess you could just have a lay-down. But I think I like how you look cleaned up."_

He looked himself over, noticing thick red accent striping on his forearms and the sides of his chest.  _Not even blue, huh?_  he thought sardonically.  _Gets the point across, at least._

"I think we both clean up pretty good," the mech winked, taking the opportunity of the techs being distracted by computer screens to eye-fuck the little human for a brief moment. "As for size, well... it's definitely something to consider. I'm  _not_  looking like that thing, though, I can tell you as much already!"

If Ngyuen remembered Hawker having something similar, then it was because they tried it out early on after the mech was introduced to 42. The smaller body had been just as unappealing to occupy, though, and had also been on a cable. The idea was scrapped within a few weeks and hadn't been brought up since.

Then there was the hustle and bustle of disconnecting him, the continued remarking about the readouts. Nguyen was absorbed in his work, and even as Hawker asked a few questions of his own, he noticed Chris fingering the collar off to the side.  _Fuck me, I can't wait to see him wearing that with that suit._  The thought occurred to him to get the kid a regular collar, maybe a steel band or a black leather ensemble to match his boss.  _Complete with tag,_  he mused.  _WARNING: Property of Big Nine!_  Kole and Colburn would have an anyeurism.

Soon it was time to climb back into that damned c-can and get strapped in. Wasn't there a children's book that had a scene like this?  _Gulliver's Travels_? The giant in that one, he seemed to recall, busted out of his bonds like nothing, though, and proceeded to sass every tiny person in the vicinity as they shot at him with ineffective weapons. Sounded enough like him. He could play that part.


	14. Rude Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Sergeant Kole, Chief Colburn, and Detective Costa confront Hawker with accusations of abuse. He also finally learns what his job in Siberia really was.

It was almost 10 by the time they arrived and Hawker was back in more familiar - more  _spacious_  - territory. Once standing again, he reached up, up, almost stretching, and touched the 22-foot ceiling.  _Ting._  Metal fingers tapped a pipe.  
  
No one was around, which was to be expected, but still he would have to wait for morning to get the awe-struck looks he was, for now, going to permit himself to enjoy. Chris was practically at his heel, still unable to take his eyes off the mech. Oh, the fun they'd have later.  
  
But for now, there was still some work to do. A couple other night crewmen came out of the woodwork around the motor pool as to test Hawker's gantry hookups to make sure everything still connected smoothly. Hawker urged Chris to head upstairs. It was going to be another long, boring hour before he'd be permitted to shut himself off for the night, and "I want my pilot looking like a million bucks tomorrow morning. We'll finally get to see what you're  _really_  made of in neurospace, now."  
  
\---  
  
And it wasn't until well after 11 that Hawker was officially 'off-duty'. He was tired and wanted nothing more than to spend the next 7 hours combing the knots out of his systems after all the software modifications he'd endured over the weekend. But still, even then, he trudged over to his office to write his report and see if there was any other work for him to do. This was a tumultuous, sensitive time for everybody - he wanted to make sure that he'd remain in good standing with the sergeant. Especially as the... accusations mounted.  
  
But the instant the door opened he gave pause. There was a dumpster bag on a skid in the corner, bright orange. The mech drew nearer, but already knew what he was going to find inside of it.  
  
Yep, there was the rag.  
  
His reactor temperature climbed to a good 305C and he vented sharply. Hands into fists. An ugly, ugly feeling passed over him and he whipped around, sensors at full-bore to see if anything else was amiss. It didn't appear so, and quickly his optics darted back over to the obvious.   
  
"Colburn..."  
  
She knew. No, she knew more than that. The Chief had known Hawker's anatomy for longer than Hawker himself - when he first discovered his 'equipment' in that first year at 42, he remembered confronting her about it. He'd been livid, confused. Why hadn't anyone told him? What was it there for? Who installed it?  
  
It had been then as it was now still:  _I can't tell you. But it's for your own good_.  
  
_You should have cut it off when you had the chance,_  he thought bitterly.  _Because it's mine and I'm going to do what I damn well please with it!_  Hawker's fist found itself meeting the wall with enough force to shake the motor pool and leave a small, dusty crater in the concrete wall.   
  
"You don't wanna come clean to me about it?" he muttered aloud, still bristling with indignation as he left the room and headed for his slab. "Fine, then. Four can play at that game."

 

* * *

 

The collar barely had enough juice for 20 minutes, apparently the quarter charge was a lie. Still, Chris had put it on as Hawker'd gotten into that c-can. He'd have that image forever, his pilot in that skin-tight suit, jacket and collar. Acting as if nothing weird was going on. THe view from Chris's perspective wasn't that amazing either. Sitting in the back of the cab, watching out the window as the scenery whipped by. At 5% the greenhorn shut down the connection, wishing he'd been inside of Hawker for their trip.  
  
_"I want my pilot looking like a million bucks tomorrow morning. We'll finally get to see what you're really made of in neurospace, now."_  
  
_His_  pilot. Chris had a big smile at hearing that. He wanted to belong here, to be a part of the police force. And Hawker wasn't remotely welcoming him at first. But hearing those words, the possessive nature of the mech; the way it gestured and winked at him? Oh yes. He belong allright. And Hawker would make sure he would know it every day.   
  
"Aye Sir. 0800 Tomorrow? After having a few days off I'm feeling a little antsy to get going again. Looking forward to feeling you wrapped around a suit that fits properly." Then he walked out, coat over his arm as he strolled out of the motor pool, the suit clinging to his backside and showing off each bounce. Every flex of muscle.  
  
The elevator doors opened. Chris pressed the button for floor 8, a big grin on his face; knowing that he'd be catching his possing checking out his shapely behind. And he is right! Totally scoping out his pilot. Chris winked as the doors shut.  
  
\------------  
  
It felt good to get the suit off, to spend time what is now home washing it really clean and handing it up to drip-dry. Back in comfortable sweats, Chris sat across from Becker, with Ferdinand cooking in the small kitchen area.

Becker's sullen tone went well with his expression. "Dude, it doesn't count if I was drunk."

Chris had an orange juice in hand. "Yes it does! Besides, you're a-rated. You can do it. What are you scared of? You'll be on a table in a room, halfway across the station from Big Nine. It's not like he can getcha." Chris make spooky, cheesy halloween sounds.

"Dude! Look what he's done to you, I've seen you in the bathroom--"

"Oh, so you got the hots for me Becker? Wanna get in my mech AND me? Jeez, didn't think you had it--"  
"Oh come ON! Everyone knows what he does to you."  
  
There is a long moment of silence. Ferdinand's microwave beeped, and you could hear every bit of mechanical movement in the door as he retrieved his food.  
  
"Everyone?" asked Chris, looking concerned.

"I.. yeah. I guess we do." admitted Ferdinand.

Chris's jovial attitude evaporated, and he put his face in his hands. Everyone know he and Hawker were banging? But.. they tried so hard to be quiet about it! "What does everyone think about what we do?"  
  
"Pretty much, everyone's betting on how he'll break you. Make you unable to serve as a pilot." Ferdinand spoke as he sat down, stirring his chinese leftovers.

"Or kill you." grumbled Becker. "It's not that anyone wants you to die. Or for Nine to hurt you either. Everyone's kinda unsure what to think about this. Plus you two seem to be friendly now."

"Fuck." CHris swore, getting up and heading to his room. "Look, I'll talk with him about it tomorrow. See what we can do to show that we're going to make it. Together."  
  
Ferdinand slurped up a lo main noodle. "You're still doing a test run with Big Nine, no getting out of it this time B."

"Damn it!"  
  
\----------------------------------  
  
Sleep didn't come easy. But it did come. THe last of the medication rolled uneasily in his stomach, many of the bruises had lifted; the autodoc did know what to do about the surface damage. When he slept that night, Chris's dreams went back to his troubled childhood. Only now, a tiny Hawker was his teddy bear.  
  
\---------------------------------  
  
Post breakfast, A freshly suited up Celn's thighs squeaked with each step. THe suit had shrunk slightly, and it felt too tight everywhere. It'd take hours to stretch it back out to the right places, and he had to keep pulling at his crotch. At 0755 he entered the motor pool. The door to Hawker's office is open, and the mech is nowhere to be seen.  
  
Coffee in hand, Chris's small form entered the large place, finding Hawker waiting for him. It is unusual for the mech not to be watching him, it's face focused on it's pilot. "Morning Boss. You okay Captain?"

 

* * *

 

He could hear Chris' approach from a mile away. That sleek, body-hugging glove that had yesterday been the sexiest piece of technology on the planet irritated his audio receptors now. Rubber against rubber was a ridiculous sound.  
  
Hawker had gone back into the office that morning to try and write his weekend reports. But the cumrag taunted him - the very symbol of everything that Kole and Colburn never wanted him to be. Instead, he'd spent the last 20 minutes leaning against the edge of his desk and brooding. Anxious, angry machine thoughts flicking through his foreprocessors like a film reel as he stewed in this resentment. He was going to confront them. Enough chicken-shit.   
  
They needed to remember that he could hurt too.  
  
_"Morning Boss. You okay Captain?"_  
  
He didn't even turn to greet his partner. "No," was all he said, deep and harsh. Then he lifted a finger and pointed at where the rag now lay. "Cat's out of the bag, now." There was an uneasy silence, but his thoughts kept racing. "They are  _not_  taking you from me!" Hawker snapped.  
  
Which, of course, was the absolute worst combination of words that could have come out of that big white mouth right then. Because his voice echoed out into the motor pool just as the sergeant, the chief, and the detective stepped out of the elevator. They exchanged worried glances and picked up their pace when the sound of Hawker's hand on his desk rang out like a crack of gunfire.  
  
He felt their approach at 100 feet away, when his CPUs slowed down enough to dedicate the proper resources to his tertiary sensor nets. Only, there were three of them. Who in the...?  
  
"Good morning Hawker, Chris," Costa said carefully. The mech knew that tone of voice, and he noticed that they were all wearing their kevlar.  
  
_...I'm the perp this time._  
  
"Why don't you come in closer, son," Kole said, waving the kid over to where the group stood. "I don't like feeling like I have to yell, you know?"  
  
Meanwhile Colburn circled around to the little pile of concrete dust on the floor from where he'd hit the wall the previous night. She kicked around a few of the larger pieces with her foot before glancing up at the divot for a moment. Then her eyes were on the mech.  
  
"You ready to talk about this, Hawker?" she said. Then she pointed at the hole above her head. "About this?" Then at the bag in the corner. "And that?" Then her finger landed on Chris. "...And those? C'mon, shut the door so we can have a private conversation."  
  
She didn't need to tell him twice.

 

* * *

 

 _"No, cat's out of the bag, now."_  
  
Chris followed that accusing finger as it pointed to the new addition to the room. He didn't have the height to see inside, so he hand to walk up tot he orange dumpster. And thankfully, it was during that walk that the suit stretched enough to stop squeaking with every step. The solitary blanket-sized rag, covered with Hawker's dried output, lay in a heap in the bottom.  
  
"Yeah. SOme of the other pilots were hinting about it. Saying that everyone knows what we do? Most of the station knows something is up. I don't think anyone knows the truth."  
  
He turned, noticing that fresh debris on the floor, and the impact site. Yup, Hawker had put his fist to the wall, at least once.  
  
_"They are_ not _taking you from me!"_  
  
Chris blushed hard, a huge smile on his face as his heart lifted. While his Captain might be furious, the pilot is ecstatic! Hawker DID care about him. Hawker  _wanted_  him! Wanted him enough to get angry about it, wanted him enough to be furious that Chris might be taken away. His own voice is soft as he answers "I don't want to leave you. You're what I need Hawker."  
  
The greenhorn didn't have the fantastic sensor suite of the HLX-9 Vanguard, but he did know that -kind- of stare. He turned as well, watching as the three figures entered the office. Kole, Colburn and.. some cyborg guy? The Cyborg had a pretty handsome face all things considered, his blue artificial eye had a mean glow to it right now, and he wore a suit with the kevlar over the expensive fabric. Why were they wearing that, was there danger? Oh man! His smile went larger, maybe there was going to be a raid!  
  
_"Why don't you come in closer, son?"_  
  
Oh. OH! Oh...  
  
That smile fell as he took a slow mosey toward the three figures. He fingered the coffee as his mind raced. THis is about as bad as it could be, short of ambushing him away from Hawker. And they'd just stuffed a new reactor in the Captain! Nothing about this setup made sense. He only looked up once Kole and Costa's boots came into view, the bruise on his neck still visible.  
  
"Sergeant Kole, good to see you." he deadpanned, turning to Costa "Good morning, I don't believe we've met. I'm Chris Celn." as he reached out with his hand, the rubber chirped.  
  
Behind the men, the large door began to swing closed on it's motorised hinges. Chris could see where there was a hatch on the side, a human sized hatch for when you'd want to get through if you didn't have the whole door open. It looked freshly oiled.  
  
\---  
  
Sarah Colbrun's boots crunched on the powdered concrete. Keeping an eye on Hawker, she hoped to hell she didn't need to use any of the special equipment she'd put on that morning. The HLX would be out for weeks if they blasted him with that kind of EMp this close. Especially if it was one tuned for his sytems. She looked to Kole and Costa; this was going to be their show. At least Celn was with them. Safer than before.  
  
Even now she wondered what they'd interrupted, what had the Deep Field 2 planned to do with the pilot this morning. Break some ribs?  
  
\---  
  
"Detective Costa. We're going to have a talk and don't worry. You aren't in trouble."

 

* * *

 

 _"We're going to have a talk and don't worry. You aren't in trouble."_  
  
Costa was here too. One of Kole's best and most experienced. Hawker had a lot of respect for the man, and that respect was crushing him right now. The respect he had for  _all_  of them was... was almost too much. But as far as they were concerned, he was not Lee Davidson's HLX-9 anymore. He was a potential criminal.  
  
"What the hell is this about?" Hawker growled, knowing full-well what this was about. Optics darted from Kole to Colburn to Costa. The Chief Engineer's body language told him that she was here for support - the questioning would be left to the cops.  
  
Kole gave him a hard, gray look. "Don't play stupid, Hawker. You know exactly what this is about."  
  
Hot air made the air shimmer behind him. One vent, two. Fingers tightened into balls and relaxed. Again. The mech knew this was coming. He just didn't expect it to go down like this.  
  
"Sir, it's not how it looks." Stupid, stupid...! The mech couldn't believe that such cliched words could come out of his mouth!  
  
" _Don't_  try that bullshit with me!" Kole roared. "I've been playing this game too goddamn long! Now tell us, Hawker. Tell us. What were you planning this time, huh? Would you try for a fracture, maybe? A broken nose? Or maybe you were just gonna  _rape_  the poor kid again?!"  
  
"I've never laid a fuckin' hand him!" Hawker shouted right back, his voice a thunderous explosion. " _Not_  like that!"  
  
"Not like that, huh? Colburn, he needs a refresher." Kole gestured harshly to the woman, who pulled out a datapad. With a few swipes of her fingers, the enormous screens behind him came to life. Security camera footage of the two of them in the motor pool.  
  
_"Where's your fight, Celn?"_  
  
Though distant, it wasn't difficult to tell what was happening. A small gray shape was on the floor underneath a massive shadow of a hand. The gray shape struggled, gasped raggedly, whimpered. If he didn't know how this movie ended, he would have feared for Chris' safety too.  
  
_"C'mon!"_  If the previous words were hard to hear, then this wasn't.  _"Where's the brave little soldier I saw yesterday, huh? Where's that hero in the face of six tons of titanium rage?"_  
  
This was difficult to watch, torn as he was between horror, shame, and... arousal. Hawker didn't dare avert his hard, golden gaze from the screen though his hand grasped at the desk's edge with a little too much severity.   
  
_"C'mon, Celn! Fight back, you son of a bitch! Fight back!"_  
  
The footage ended, but the mech's optics remained fixed on the screen.  
  
"Care to explain what happened there?" Costa this time.  
  
"I was emotionally compromised. And Chris knows what he did to get that response from me," he said slowly. But his choice of words was damning, he realized too late. "We made up after that."  
  
Kole snorted. "Did you?"  
  
More camera footage came to life on the screen. It was a shot of the office door, closed. It's the audio they're interested in here.  
  
It's not syllables, but revving engines and wordless cries of pain. The footage fast-forwarded. Then his voice could be heard, faint but audible, through the door.  
  
_"Yeah! Take it you fuckin' pathetic scab!"_  
  
A muffled whimper.  
  
When exhibit B ended, Hawker buried his face in his hand, and he vented raggedly. Shoulders, normally so strong and strikingly heroic, slumped under the weight of the world. Not even his 15-foot metal body could shoulder this.

 

* * *

 

Chris found himself behind Kole with Detective Costa standing to his left. The man's organic side to him, his natural hand bracing the greenhorn's shoulder. Chris sipped his coffee quietly, deciding to shut the fuck up and let this play out until everything is on the floor. Just what DID everyone know; and what did they assume?  
  
_"Would you try for a fracture, maybe? A broken nose? Or maybe you were just gonna rape the poor kid again?!"_  
  
wat.  
  
What? Is THAT all this was about? The confusion, the alarm, the sudden showdown? All of those because no one knew they are happily fucking? And that Chris liked being hurt? THe pilot wasn't sure if he should be be hurt or angry! As he went to open his mouth, Costa gave his shoulder a squeeze. THe man shook his head left and right.  
  
Let the evidence do the work, the guilty implicate themselves. Himself.  
  
The part where Hawker turned on him brought up that ugly memory. He felt himself stiffening, that old anger boiling up inside of him. THe perspective of the moment! He never though their size difference as that much but.. if he hadn't have been there... it looked like the mech would end him.  
  
_"Yeah! Take it you fuckin' pathetic scab!"_  Hawker grunting covering him with the cum he'd worked so hard for. Then a pathetic cry. Had he whimpered that loud?  
  
\---  
  
"Don't look away, I'm sure you'll still appreciate your handwork." growled Kole as Exhibit C splashed up on the screens. It was the medical scans, a single black censorship dot parked over Chris's groin and anus in each image. Both the kid's front and back from the healthy scans from three weeks ago, to the awful damage, then the progression of even MORE damage.  
  
Costa sucked in a breath, glancing at the greenhorn who he had a good grip on. The mark from the bite still sat on that slender neck, blooming in ugly black and blue and green. What kind of tolerance for abuse did the pilot possess?  
  
"What kind of disciplinary action is that, Captain Hawker? I can see the marks from your fingers on all over his body, and around his  _neck_! Abrasions from him being scraped against concrete. And bites. BITES, Captain!" Kole felt anger from the whole thing, he wasn't sure what is worse: the abuse suffered by the greenhorn...  
  
or the lies from the Deep Field 2.  
  
"Would you care to explain just why NONE of this is in your reports?" bellowed the infuriated Sergeant.  
  
\---  
  
Costa is very happy about one thing, that the perp in this internal case stood 15 feet tall. Otherwise he'd have left the greenhorn and gotten two good metal-fist punches and titalium kneecaps to the gut of the basterd before Colburn and Kole pulled him back. One look to Colburn told Roman that she would've taken her sweet time pulling him back. She didn't take her fingers off her weapon, smart woman. He hated this part, forcing the victem to see the damage that'd been done, recounting that they knew of the abuse. Showing the attacker in a place of humility. And second now the kid would probably try to defend the metallic abuser.  
  
And that's when he'd escort the scab out and bring him someplace quite to talk about things. And his future without the HLX's torment.  
  
\---  
  
Sarah felt her jaw muscles tighten, pushing up the skin as she glared at the mech. Hawker had lied to all of them! It didn't take a genius IQ to figure out why the rookie pilot hadn't said a word: Hawker is his superior officer, his trainer, and his equipment. If the kid had failed out, what kind of future could he really expect to get? Pilots who weren't compatible with AIs tended to get a reputation fast. AIs got a pass on personality; they are programmed to be honest.  
  
Hawker had .. older motivations. And something about Celn brought out the worst in the machine.  
  
If the mech so much as took two stomps toward any of them, she'd fry him where he stood. Budget be damned!  
  
\---  
  
Chris couldn't help it, he is loving this! All the pain, the worry about lying.. his concerns had been RIGHT! If Hawker had just listened, almost none of this would be going on. A little vindictive part of him felt full, rubbing it's belly as it happily wallowed in Hawker's shame.  
  
Of course, this could mean an end to their partnership. If anything, they understood each other. And .. well.. he did kind love the big oaf. In that twisted way that told him love came in agonizing moments that left scars.  
  
Celn reached up and tapped on Costa's hand, the one sitting on his rubber-clad shoulder. The blue eyes of the detective landed on him, a little surprised the the kid wasn't on the verge of tears. Chris pantomimed, 'Me talk now?'

 

* * *

 

The photos practically accost him. He knows this song and dance, knows how the pressure can make almost anybody but the most sociopathic sickos crack. Well, there was one good thing to come out of this at least. He still had the ability to crack.  
  
Still, none of this was fair. Hawker stayed silent, tense as a coiled spring, as Kole hammered his point home again and again.  
  
_"And bites. BITES, Captain!"_  
  
Head bent a little further at that.  
  
_"Would you care to explain just why NONE of this is in your reports?"_  
  
"Isn't it a little fucking  _obvious_ , sir?" Hawker growled, turning to face them again. He kept his distance though. One wrong move and it was all over. In retrospect, he realized he was lucky to get this much from his judges, jury, and executioners. AIs barely even had the same rights as cattle. There was no exercising his Mirandas or phoning up a lawyer.  
  
Chris looked like he wanted to say something, like he was ready to blow the whole thing open right now. But Hawker wasn't done yet.   
  
"And I should ask, how's the experiment going, Colburn?" he hissed. "How many years has it been going on? At least 10 or so, I should guess? I mean, I was only made back in '46." The mech shot a look at Kole. "That's only 2 years to get me ready for Irkutsk, isn't that right, Sergeant?"  
  
Kole and Colburn exchanged surprised glances.  
  
Now it was  _their_  turn to go on the defensive. Colburn stared daggers at the mech. "Hawker, I have no idea where you got that -!"  
  
"How many detainment centers were there in Irkutsk?"  
  
"Hawker."  
  
Heat was building. Rage. Despair. The mech clutched at the desk to keep himself from taking a single step closer, a move he knew would be interpreted badly. And perhaps right now, rightfully so. " _How many, Sergeant?"_  
  
" _Hawker!_ "  
  
_**"I was a weapon of psych warfare, wasn't I?!"**_  the mech roared at the top of his vocalizer's output. The desk creaked as the metal was wrenched into a permanent furrow around the shape of his huge, angry fingers. Heat rushed out his backside, warming the air in the room, making it stuffy. Dense. Difficult to breathe. And still he remained glued to the spot.  
  
Costa's hand on Chris' shoulder tightened, and he had instinctively put himself in front of the kid. Roman had no idea what the AI was talking about, but from that clues Kole and Colburn were giving him, this was real. And it was above his paygrade.  
  
"You need to learn to leave well enough alone, Hawker," Colburn said with quiet authority.  
  
Barring the obvious in his line of duty: "At least  _this_  iteration of Deep Field 2 never hurt anybody that didn't  _want_  to be hurt." The mech stood up tall. Stiff. This was all he was going to say on the matter. All he  _could_  say. It was no use trying to wrench the information out of them - it'd be a court martial at best if he did. Hawker gestured with a nod of his head to Chris.  
  
"They won't believe you, but you can tell them anyways. I've said my piece."

 

* * *

 

 _ **"I was a weapon of psych warfare, wasn't I?!"**_  
  
Ahhhhh. Chris's school history lessons were crap, but he knew about the invasions into Russia. If Hawker had been a tool for interrogating prisoners? Well fuck, he'd have been amazing! Kind of expensive though, surely something smaller would have been better? Well.. unless you REALLY wanted to get information. Or terrify prisoners.   
  
And what sort of sicko would make Hawker?  
  
Chris stood there, coffee cup in hand, Costa infront of him in the classic protective position. The kid had a furitive glower on his face, he consumed the hot beverage as the intense emotions rippled around the room.  
  
_"At least this iteration of Deep Field 2 never hurt anybody that didn't want to be hurt._  
  
That might have been true. It is at least true when it came to Chris. And suddenly he felt remorse for reveling in Hawker's misery. The robot had so little privacy, so little time to figure out how to be normal. And the one thing it had that it cared about, the single outlet of pleasure it can remember is about to be whisked away.  
  
"Serga--" is all he got out before Roman's fingers touched Chris's lips, silencing him as the detective began to lead the rookie out of the room. "Come with me kid. You'll be alright."  
  
Chris looked up at his Boss. Green eyes met glowing yellow as the waves of heat washed into the room. He winked, while the corner of his mouth pulled up into a slight smile. As he walked out, her made sure to stand on his toes, ensuring his legs and read would show strong against the suit's rubber, giving a fantastic view as Costa guided him to that smaller door.  
  
Between Hawker's office and the motor pool, there are a numerous rooms that held equipment and machinery that saw little use; and bare minimum maintenance. This one had been prepared in advance, just for this occasion. Blankets lay on some equipment, there were four folding chairs in the room, and two boxes of tissues. Chris felt warm inside,a nd it wasn't just his beverage. THey did care.  
  
"Um.. this is really awkward." Chris began.  
  
"You should know that this is going to be recorded, I've got all the hardware for it." Costa joked, a smile on his face. He hadn't needed to get in a fight with Big Nine. And the mech seemed awfully torn up about being confronted, lashing out about it's past: as if that was an excuse for how it acted.  
  
Just like any abuser, never their own fault. Never accepting it was their responsibility.  
  
"Heh. Yeah. That admissible?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"How about that. So um, how does this work? Because I'm not sure what I should be saying here."  
  
"For now, it's pretty simple. We wait for Kole. If Colburn comes that's fine, but she might.. uh, have to hobble Nine. Or at least watch him."  
  
"And I gotta figure out if anyone's ever going to trust us again."  
  
Roman Costa opened a cooler that'd been placed in the room, taking out a Pepsi before shutting the lid. He sat down in one of the chairs, cracking the can open and holding it with his metal hand. Us. The kid had said it. Thinking he is part of a team already. Had that been beaten into him as well? Was Hawker any more than an old war relic, some kind of diabolical instrument of torture?  
  
Was the kid already broken?  
  
"You going to be good answering questions? We're going to be going over what happened behind closed doors. In detail." The blue can felt cool, the soda fizzed against his sensors.  
  
"Yeah. Just don't think my answers are what you are expecting. I'm kinda worried that no one is going to believe me." he echoed Hawker.  
  
"It's your testimony kiddo. Just say what you remember. Ya had 15 feet and 6 tons turning you black and blue; no one is asking you for perfect recall after that."  
  
\---  
  
Kole could feel the device resting on his belt. He kept going over how to use it in his mind, flip up the red trigger guard, press button. No more Deep Field 2.   
  
What would Lee say about this? Nothing, Lee had been dead for months now. He wouldn't want to see Hawker like this though. The AI needed to either be put down or..  
  
Well, or what? What choices did he have now; if he wanted to keep Big Nine as 42's trump card?  
  
If they fried him, then knowing wouldn't hurt him. If he stayed alive, then he'd keep digging until he  _knew._  Heck, Chris might even be able to burrow into those memories. They kid apparently had a knack for memory alteration; the poor sod.   
  
"Sarah. I'm going to talk with Celn and Costa. Can you keep an eye on the HLX?"  
  
"Yes Sir." she was seething. Wasn't too hard to imagine her thinking about this situation as if Chris was one of her four boys; greenhorn is the right age too.   
  
"And as I will be a while, you might as well Enlighten Captain Hawker about his career highlights in Irkutsk." he sighed, turning and heading to that small door.  
  
"SIR?" came the unbelieving question.  
  
"Chief Engineer, after this we either have a unit on disciplinary watch; or a pilot and a paperweight." Kole stepp on through, closing the door to where Chris and Roman waited.  
  
\------------  
  
Chris sat across from Roman, foot shaking as he stared at the floor. How the FUCK is he supposed to save their collective bacon? Hawker's life is in his little hands.  
  
"Looking good gre-- Clen. I suppose it's not fair to call you that anymore." Kole looked old, and tired. THe fire that'd burned in him had gone out, and Chris could see years of terrible things weighing on his Sergeant's shoulders.  
  
"Sir, I.." then, some very old memories came back. Unwanted ones, as Kole offered him a deep green blanket; it smelled of wool and industrial cleaner.  
  
Tears filled the rookie's eyes and he sniffed. He held the blanket with white knuckles, asking "Sirs. How far back-- what do you really know about my childhood?"

 

* * *

 

Roman escorted Chris out the little door and into the shallow alcove. Anger still burned hot in him, but the kid's little antic reminded him that there was still the possibility of good things waiting on the other side of this. Even if those possibilities were slimming by the minute.  
  
Kole was rubbing his fingers along his shaved head as though he still missed his hair. He sighed audibly and stared at the ground as he thought. Colburn's hazel eyes burned holes into Hawker's armor like laser cutters. He held her gaze with just as much white-hot bitterness.  
  
_"Sarah. I'm going to talk with Celn and Costa. Can you keep an eye on the HLX?"_  
  
_The_  HLX? What was he, just a piece of hardware now? An asset? Have the 8 years he spent here, everything he did for the precinct, for the safety of this shitty town, already gone down the drain?  
  
_Lee, you would have stood by me, right?_  
  
His plea disappeared into the ether. No answer came.  
  
_"And as I will be a while, you might as well Enlighten Captain Hawker about his career highlights in Irkutsk."_  
  
Or maybe... it just did.  
  
Hawker's mouth fell open in shock as Colburn whipped around.  
  
_"SIR?"  
  
"Chief Engineer, after this we either have a unit on disciplinary watch; or a pilot and a paperweight."_  
  
And with that, he disappeared, leaving the two of them alone.  
  
Sarah Colburn was a pretty woman. Mid-fifties, sharp as a whip with a salt-and-pepper bun on the top of her head. Right now she was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and her bulky black vest underneath a nice blazer. She hadn't counted on getting her hands dirty today. At least, not with grease. They'd been preparing for this. Her holstered arsenal was different than Kole's usual. They were the electronic equivalent to a gun held to the temple of a human skull. One flick of a switch and that would be it. None of this would ever mattered.  
  
The room was still and silent for a long while. Eventually Colburn cursed loudly and went to tear off the heavy kevlar. "Get this... goddamn... thing..."  
  
_FWAP_  it hit the floor and she breathed heavily, as though she couldn't before.  
  
Hawker's CPUs were overclocked now, sensor networks primed, calibrated, and all trained on  _her_. His mentor, his firm, maternal guiding hand, his friend.   
  
Colburn sat down on the floor with her back to the wall.  
  
"You were built in 2046," she began, sounding suddenly very weary. Hawker risked taking one step closer, and when she didn't flinch, he relaxed a little. His hands trembled in anticipation. It was the story he'd been wanting to hear for 8 years now. "Originally intended for combat support... a function that you served for 18 months.  
  
"We invaded Russia after the bombings; you know that. Mech tech was supposed to be the next big thing in conventional warfare. But models like yours were... expensive. They lost two or three units in the first year and decided to rethink where and how to deploy the HLX-9s to maximize their effectiveness and minimize their... exposure to attack. That truly was the beauty of mechs - unlike tanks or planes, you're as versatile as the pilot inside of you. You can be humping crates of MREs one day and calling in air strikes the next."  
  
"What happened in 2048," the mech pressed quietly.   
  
She looked up at him. There was pain in her eyes - real pain. She wiped her forehead with her hand a few times before continuing. "The US had detention centers around Baikal for three years already. Nine in total, two of which were... black sites."  
  
_Black sites._  "One was in Irkutsk."  
  
"One was... in Irkutsk." Her voice was almost a murmur now. "Your involvement there was unofficial, undocumented through conventional channels. They had... they had blocks there where'd they'd put people who... who were probably never going to see the light of day again. That was your domain." A sniffle? "They called you the  _Bloodhound_."  
  
Hawker could picture it. It was almost like he was in the sim again. Except this time, what had previously been a bizarrely nondescript building just to the north of the city was filled in with technicolor detail. Guards, prisoners, blood and feces on the walls, moaning and wailing echoing down the long cell blocks. Snow in the windows, blocking the light. Never warm enough inside to  _not_  see the wisps of moisture ghosting out from between chattering teeth. Teeth. If they were lucky to still have a full set.  
  
The mech let these images sink in, and something finally made sense in him. Something recoiled, something surged. The weight of the emotions in him forced him to the floor as well, into a heavy kneel.  
  
"I was  _designed_  to be this way," he said at length. "I have a _need_ to do this and you chose _not_ to take away my weapon of choice."  
  
"Hawker, you've got to understand. We didn't know 8 years ago," Colburn said, lifting her face to his. Her cheek was wet. "We  _still_  don't know what it is that we did to you." She wiped it away and stood up again, jaw set and thin lips drawn into an even thinner line. "But I thought you had more of a goddamn  _conscience_  than this. Whatever the hell they designed you to do, you have agency," she hissed. "That's what the Deep Field 2  _does_. Make its own decisions. Be its own... its own  _person_ , Hawker.  _Your_  own person."  
  
"It's consensual, you know."  
  
"It's what?"  
  
Hawker vented out his heat again. Long, slow vents. "Everything I've done to him. I asked first."  
  
"You... asked?"  
  
Colburn was caught completely off-guard. She almost didn't even recognize the words when he spoke them.  _Consensual?_  What even was that in a situation like this? Was it even possible? But the images of Chris' battered body haunted her again. No. There was no way that anyone would consent to  _that_. The HLX probably remembered, somewhere in those hindprocessors of his, how to extract whatever words from whatever person he wanted. Whether those words were an admission of guilt, military intel, or a harried and false 'Yes, I want this', it didn't matter. When your previous life had been nothing but weasel words and lethal mind games, it didn't matter.

Or did it? Did she, or did she not believe her own little speech just now about agency and choice?  
  
At least, as far as the AI was concerned, he wasn't lying anymore. She'd gotten all she needed from the mech right now, and he seemed pacified enough. The air was too thick to breathe anymore, though. She had to get out.  
  
"I... I need to speak with Kole for a minute. And don't you even think about moving."

 

* * *

 

Hawker's office doubled as part of the server storage for Precinct 42, as the temperature hit triple digit numbers metallic shutters opened and large fans began to force cooler air into the room from the motorpool. Things would get regulated in time, but for now the kneeling mech is alone. But the memories, ones he didn't know he had, kept appearing. Things that no policeman should even consider.  
  
It's mostly techniques. How a pinch on each ankle will hamstring a prisoner, eliminating the need for much more than a four foot wall. The importance of  _sounds!_  Open air in the prison is important, so all could hear what might happen to each other. Information, good information would be rewarded. Prisoners are permitted to please him for dinner. Or, to witness him end a prisoner for his own pleasure.  
  
The whole time, his dark heart kept feeding the Deep Field 2. The pilots.. those faceless humans that drove him then. Encouraging him. THhy'd all wear him, and him alone. He was their mask. His face, a reflection of their sadistic intent. Then it all ended; and he was abandoned to the cold. And the bodies.  
  
\----------  
  
"There was a full report by medical. It delved into the things from social services, concerning your life before age 18. It didn't have much to say beyond you being in and out of the system." Costa begin, kind of unsure about this particular line of questioning.  
  
"Edited. I'm sorry Roman, but I was hoping you wouldn't need to see what Celn went though." Kole chose a bottle of water, the chair creaking as he sat down heavily. "I read the pages of reports from social services. I then read the police reports. I then read the transcript of the court case, which was not open to the public. Then I calmly and precisely broke my tablet in half."  
  
Chris's face screwed up into a half-smile, half frown. His eyes watered, but he didn't sob. Emotion poured from him with his tears and he kept working the blanket through his hands as Kole spoke.  
  
The large hands of the Sergeant shook with anger, his voice as calm as a sniper sighting mile-out target. "Then I broke those halves into halves. They're resting in my trashcan, which I would have burned if I still smoked."  
  
Roman Costa frowned. A mech with a past in Russia and a 24 year old rookie with a past like.. he paused. "Chris, perhaps you can give me the highlights." he echoed Kole's words from earlier.  
  
"When I was 8, they took me to the Asylum." the silently weeping pilot spoke. Most of the time, people sobbed when they wept. They couldn't just.. talk through their tears. "Nothing bad happened there. They just smiled and gave me three meals a day. Then I'd watch TV, or sleep if it was lights out."  
  
Kole's breathing is rock steady, he looked at a point far off on the horizon. Costa's internal processors noted that the Sergena is breathing in and out exactly four seconds apart. The large man is trying NOT to get angry at the victim, for something he had no control over. Most police despise injustice, get infuriated when they see it. Bad thing happening to children? That's a special kind of anger that tends of have Perps end up  _missing_  with no follow up; even in the 2050s.  
  
"Chris, Stop. That's an order." Kole's had never been calmer.  
  
Clen -flinched-. He didn't flinch when 15 tons of fury bellowed at him! What kind of hell did--  
  
The door opened and a heated gush of air pressed into the room. "Gentlemen." Colburn closed it behind her, looking flushed from the warmth. "The HLX is pondering it's past in it's his office and the vents are open. I need a drink." She chose the flask under her vest, before getting a water. Sitting down in the fourth chair, she watched as Chris's fingers shakily worked through the green woolen blanket and the tears dripped down his face. <Oh, sure. I'm sure you asked HLX-9.> were her acidic thoughts.  
  
"Chris's exact birth date isn't known, he was given up for adoption at 18 months." Kole spoke, wanting to put this as delicately as he could. "He then went onto a foster home. Six years later, after the passing of the youngest adopted of five children in his home, it was discovered that.." Kole coughed, standing up with a speed the belied his age. The senior officer stood at 6' 4", and had no difficulty reaching up to grasp onto one of the overhead conduits. It began to bend in his hands. He looked away from the other three, but Costa could see his face. The burning fury in his Sergeant's eyes.  
  
"The remaining children were placed in the most appropriate care given the situation. Three years later Chris was moved to public housing. Unsurprisingly," the man understated "Chris had trouble dealing with school and ended up dropping out after 10th grade. The rest you know." Kole's breathing went back to that pattern, and the whole piece of conduit shook from wall to wall in the small room.  
  
\---  
  
Costa had lost half of himself to an explosion. It had been a crumpled bleach bottle housing an bomb. It didn't matter how silly it might be, he would be damned if he didn't stay well clear of white debris from now on. Still, that didn't explain anyone would want to get beaten up? Right?  
  
He thought about it, putting himself in Celn's position, as he would do with so many cases. From age 2 to 8, in a home where well... very bad things happened. Then 3 years in an Asylum on drugs until they figured those bad things had been bleached from his brain... Then on the streets getting high after losing his home...  
  
Roman Costa couldn't get into that mindspace. Whatever kind of result there was, you'd end up wired wrong.  
  
"May I hug you?" Colburn.  
  
"Y-yeah."  
  
Chris's hands tightened on the blanket as he leaned into the Chief Engineer. She stroked him gently while looking at Costa with a similar suprised expression; obvious only Kole had seen the original report and whatever hell it'd crawled out of.  
  
"This is so stupid.." Chris began, wiping the tears off his face.  
  
"No, it's not." Colburn impressed, patting over the greenhorn's short hair.  
  
"..no, I mean.. I told that idiot we needed to tell you what we were doing." Chris sniffed, blowing his noses as Kole turned and Colburn looked down at him.   
  
"Chris?" came the soft question from the woman, Costa's metal fingers had dimpled the Pepsi can with soft little clinks.  
  
"When I first saw him, I thought he was so handsome. We'd link up and it was even better then I imagined." then it all came out of his mouth. "I .. kind wore the collar to bed last Saturday. I was fantasising about him before I went to sleep by then. I'd been drinking, forgot I had it on." He wiped his nose, not noticing that Colburn had stepped back.  
  
"We went into his office. God did I want him. We kissed. I saw stars. Heh. It's rough with Hawker. He marks me as his. I like it. We gotta stay operational, so not so rough. But.."  
  
he looked down, patting over the green blanket..  
  
"..I'm safe with him. I know what he's thinking. He knows what I think. We can't lie to each other." Chris swallowed, the tissue tearing apart in his nervous hands, he couldn't even look up to meet their faces. They'd never let him go back now. He knew it. He and Hawker were done for.  
  
"We're both broken. But at least we make each other happy."

 

* * *

 

 _"We're reporting live tonight from the occupied Siberian city of Irkutsk. Local time is about 7am **tomorrow**  for you viewers at home in the States. Behind me, you can see the Shelekhov Detention Camp, separated from us by these razor wire fences."_ The reporter wore a heavy parka to protect himself from the immense spring cold, made all the colder by the nuclear winter that had enveloped the planet. Even his nostrils were white with frost.  _"Up until yesterday, this particular building housed 427 detainees, most of them Sino-Russian civilians. However, due to mounting international pressure after December's_ Angarsk Leaks _, this facility will be closing this week, along with several others."_  
  
The old news reel cut abruptly to make room for another.  
  
_"...President Alvarez adamantly denies that any of the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' indicative of general military policy, and maintains that they are isolated incidents. Twenty-seven officers have so far been indicted in the case, and some of them are facing jail time..."_  
  
Another.  
  
_"...Investigators say that they have secured evidence of the use of beatings, sexual abuse, sleep deprivation, and other torture techniques being used at several of the Baikal facilities. Some camps have even made use of_ mech _technology and AIs to assist in these abuses, which goes against the recent Xianping Convention. Right now, human rights organizations are racing to comb through the available documents even as they face confiscation by the CIA..."_  
  
Footage floods Hawker's CPUs in a furious rush of images and sound. Of course there were black sites. Of  _course_  there were. How could there  _not_  have been?   
  
Then it all stopped and he was left in the humming blackness of his own mind.  
  
"The Bloodhound," he muttered experimentally. " _Ishcheyka._ " That's what they would have called him.   
  
_"Ne ishcheyka! Net pozhaluysta!"_  He imagined the terrified screams from the faceless, bloodied prisoners.  _"Pozhaluysta! Ya skazhu vam, chto vy khotite znat'!!"_  
  
Hawker wondered what he'd been told to get him to carry out such atrocities. He wondered who those pilots were, what they felt when they made sick prisoners, sweaty and shaking and nauseous with fever, suck their antibiotic treatments from his throbbing shaft. He wondered what ran through somebody's mind -  _anybody's_  mind - when they promised to fix the frostbitten fingers and toes in exchange for fifteen minutes in Hawker's 'hot seat'. It would be a privilege to have the cockpit closed for privacy.  
  
The images, the thoughts, the imaginings that filled in the enormous gaps where his memory had been scrubbed clean, they all haunted him. But he was still cool, still distant, the mech noted. It wasn't the act of inflicting pain and terror that disturbed him, no - it was that he'd simply done it to the wrong people. A mere mistake in priorities; an error of logistics. If he'd been allowed to do this to Stasevich, or Zakharin, or Petrenko? Hawker doubted that anyone's moral hackles would have ever bothered to raise. He'd be the proud, necessary evil that helped to cow a threatening nuclear power.  
  
And now it was up to 42's best to decide if the HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker would be permitted to be  _their_  proud, necessary evil again.  
  
It was all up to Chris, now.  
  
\---  
  
In the alcove outside, the two cops and the computer engineer exchanged looks. Costa's was unfazed - this was a well-worn path to him. Kole's was a sort of stiff deadpan, not wanting to let on how much Chris' words were confusing him. And Colburn's was that of righteous indignation. Still, the title of a research paper she'd seen from a few years before crossed her mind:  _On the Potential Impossibilities of Neurological Cross-Link Consent Violations_. It'd been about the psychology of autonomy in neurospace, asking the bizarre question of whether or not someone could willingly violate their own consent under such circumstances. He never read it all the way through. Seemed too much like speculative fiction to her. She probably should have, though.  
  
_"We're both broken. But at least we make each other happy."_  
  
Costa drained the can to buy himself a few moments to think, then set it down very gently. "Look, Chris... I think there's a good chance this has all been a really overwhelming experience for you. You should probably - and I'm sure the sargeant will agree with me here - you should probably take some time off. Distance yourself from the situation. Then... then we can talk about this again and see how you feel. It certainly wouldn't hurt, would it?"  
  
Kole shook his head, then nodded. Tired. He was so tired. And confounded. "No, that sounds like a great idea, detective. What do you say, Chris? I could put in the paperwork for your leave as soon as you're done here. How about a week or two? See how you feel, son?"

 

* * *

 

Even through a heavy fireproof door, they all could hear the noises of the HLX moving. Feel the rumble as it took a step. When it moved it's arms and torso, the whine of multiple hydraulic systems in operation.  
  
_"You should probably take some time off. Distance yourself from the situation."_  
  
Chris felt confused. Hawker like him, yeah? And sure did like Hawker back. What was wrong with what they did, as long as he didn't get injured so bad he couldn't work? The other three, THEY seemed to think it was wrong. And Chris trusted Colburn and Kole as much as he did Hawker.  
  
_"What do you say, Chris? I could put in the paperwork for your leave as soon as you're done here. How about a week or two? See how you feel, son?"_  
  
Chris wiped his face with another tissue, the tears finally slowing. "I guess? I'm not sure if I'll change my mind about anything." He took a breath in and held it for a long moment, before letting it go. "I'll take a week and think about things. Maybe you can talk with me, or have me speak with someone about this."  
  
He dropped the green blanket, those were memories he didn't want back. His looked at the three people in the alcove with him, his cheeks flushed.  
  
"What if I decide nothing changes? What if in a week I put this suit back on and walk into him?" He shifted his eyeline between Colburn and Kole. "And what If we want to have a relationship? I like what we've done so far. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the future." Ominous? Yes. Declaring he's going to .. keep having sex with a 15 foot tall psychopath? Yep.  
  
Celn blew his nose, then began picking up the tissues and tossing them into a bucket for disposal.

 

* * *

 

Hawker sensed that their conversation was coming to an end. Audio sensors noted the die-off in muffled murmurings on the other side of the door. He stepped over to the smooth metal with a defeated sort of quiet and let his side come to rest against it. His helmet made a dull clunk.  
  
_"And what If we want to have a relationship? I like what we've done so far. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the future."_  
  
Chris' words hung in the air like a bad omen.  
  
But Hawker didn't have anything left to lose, did he?  
  
"Sirs," he said, deep voice carrying through the door with ease. "If I may say one last thing before you wipe me clean again and hang this body out to dry..." An uneasy venting of cooler air. "Chris and I are who we are because of the choices of others. And I won't sugarcoat it: we're  _fucked-up beyond all recognition_. But that don't mean abuse. And the only deciding factor here is your ability to  **trust us**  when we say so."

 

* * *

 

Colburn, Costa and Kole all could feet the invisible presence of Hawker on the other side of the wall. It wasn't too hard to imagine how easy it would be for a rookie to get swallowed up by that.  
  
The ranking officers also weren't so dull that they didn't know that emotions are a work here. From machine and man. Wordless communication happened in an instant; it is Kole's call.  
  
"You'll come up to my office Chris. We'll file that paperwork for paid leave, and get you out of 42 for a little while." Resting a hand on the kid's shoulder, Kole wished he could do something better. The kid deserved a chest full of medals for the shit he'd been thought. And permanent psychiatric care.  
  
"Roman, stick with Chris until he's set up somewhere. You know who we can pull from, I want Chris talking to some people who can help him make sense of this. You included."  
  
"Yes Sir. C'mon scabber. Bring the tissues, leave the blanket." Taking the rubbery pilot under tow, he left the small room and made their way up to Kole's office.  
  
The Sergeant looked to his Chief Engineer. He'd thrown her under the bus already once today. "If you have any ideas about what we can do for the deep field 2's peace of mind, or anyone we can talk to about him? Now is the time. I'll entertain anything that means we don't end up with a 6 ton paperweight."   
  
Sarah Colburn let a smile turn up the corners of her mouth. "I do have more then a few ideas, let me see what can be done on short notice." She turned and walked out, exiting a different way then the massive office.  
  
"I'm putting Captain Hawker on suspension." he spoke in a loud enough voice so that the mech could hear. "For falsifying reports, coercing your subordinate to lie for you, and for creating this problem! Youa re confined to your office and your Alcove. You are not to contact Celn, nor to respond to his attempts to contact you."  
  
Once he was along, with just a wall between them, his voice carried a different tone. "You lied to me. About something that matters, Hawker."  
  
And then, he flicked the lights and walked out. He'd need to file paperwork, then he is going to hit the gym. Kole need to punch until his fists or the heavy bag broke.

 

* * *

 

 _"I'm putting Captain Hawker on suspension. For falsifying reports, coercing your subordinate to lie for you, and for creating this problem! Youa re confined to your office and your Alcove. You are not to contact Celn, nor to respond to his attempts to contact you."_  
  
He didn't even flinch.  
  
This... wasn't what he was expecting to hear.  
  
Was this what he thought it was? Was this a second  _chance?_  A smile struggled for dominance against a shameful frown.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Hawker listened as Kole gave his orders, wondering what Colburn was up to. But only so much -  _They gave me a second chance!_  
  
But when all quieted down again, when the cyborg's heavy shuffle and Chris' pitter patter disappeared and the door shut behind Colburn, the mech knew that the sergeant was still there.  
  
_"You lied to me. About something that matters, Hawker."_  
  
"I'm sorry, sir."  
  
But he'd already left.  
  
\---  
  
"I've decided to make you a more manageable size for now," Colburn said, still without much warmth to her voice as she spoke. The woman was still wary of Hawker, even two days later; still didn't want to trust him. Didn't want to think too hard about what Chris had said their relationship was.  
  
For the second time in a week, the mech woke up in a drone body. However, this one bore a few major differences he quickly realized. He reached up to feel for a cable, but there was none, wonder of wonders. It wasn't especially complicated technology to have a body robust enough to handle a download, but it was expensive, and so were the batteries to power it.  
  
No face, but the body still had better sensors - and a rudimentary haptic system, thank christ - more numerous points of articulation, and a more familiar silhouette.  
  
"I feel like I've been here before... ma'am," he said, looking over the five metal fingers. Very finely machined.  
  
"For about a month early on," she responded curtly. "While your number 9081 has been restricted to your office, I wasn't about to condemn you to solitary confinement. You can come and go as you please, so long as you return to this charging station every 24 hours. And so long as you continue to steer well clear of Chris, or so help me."  
  
"Yes, ma'am."  
  
The mech disengaged from the mobile charging station which was currently plugged into the wall next to his normal alcove. Feet were practically silent as they hit the floor. He turned and looked up at the now rather large maintenance slab, and it occurred to him that perhaps the humans felt he was bigger than he really was. It was very easy to do from all the way down here, it seemed.  
  
"I see you've rewritten your reports since Chris started working with you," Colburn said, eyes glued to her datapad. Hawker nodded the little head. "Good. Kole and I will be going over these later. Now, there's a few other things."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"I'm going to be doing a lot of work with your software over the next week, make sure everything's running smoothly. Update your firmware. All that crap."  
  
"Of course." There was still something else, he could tell.  
  
"And, uh... we're going to have a reporter wandering around," she said, fighting a grimace. "Starting next Monday. Hawker, if you so much as  _walk_  funny in front of that guy..."  
  
He threw up his hand. "I get it. Be on my best behavior. I'll keep my mouth shut about... Celn."  
  
"You know what, just don't even talk to him. Let everyone else do the talking."  
  
The little thing vented air with a faint little whirring. Hardly the gust he was used to. "That's probably a better idea, ma'am."  
  
"Great. Now later today, too, I've got a colleague coming to visit. She's head of the university's department of machine psychology. We're going to run a few tests on you..."  
  
\---  
  
The week passed slowly, drearily. The mech was poked, prodded, questioned, and just plain left alone for much of the time. It was a little disorienting, being on such familiar ground in such an unfamiliar body, but he was getting used to it. It was the looks he was getting, though. Even Wen avoided him whenever she was down in the motor pool.  
  
The entirety of 42 probably knew the whole damn thing.  
  
What frustrated him most was not having Chris around. Not even being able to  _contact_  him. Not so much as a text.  
  
_Hope they at least put him up someplace decent._

 

* * *

 

Chris quietly filled out his end of the paperwork, sitting at the desk of the secretary who served all of 42's highest staff. Three doors down, Costa and Kole spoke in the Sergeant's office.  
  
"I have three who're available right away, sent out emails on the way up here." Roman offered, carrying his kevlar with ease. One of the benefits to having a flank full of cybernetics.   
  
Kole parked his in his closet, along with the specialised weaponry. He picked up a roll of well worn athletic tape, and began to wind it around his right wrist. "Good. I want the rook out of here. I don't want him texting hawker, but I'm not ordering him not to either. Also, there's a collar.."  
  
Costa smirked for a moment, then got his expression under control. "I've uh, seen him with it on."  
  
"It stays here. Colburn set it up as a low-grade remote linkup. Help him pack and get him someplace away from this end of town." He tucked the final band around his wrist, then began on his other hand.  
  
"Sir, I'm asking because I want to know. Where I get a copy of that report?"  
  
Kole exhaled a long sigh, he knew Roman for 20 years. He wasn't sure if the man had seen worse but he also knew that the detective wouldn't stop snooping until he knew the truth. "You contact medical. 07-C. You get one copy and you keep it in your head. It does. not. leave. It stays in your chrome dome until you delete it. If the help you've got wants details, then you answer 'em. I'm going to the gym."  
  
With that Kole left for the small athletic center on this floor. Technically it was the executive gym, or the least used room in 42 as the rank-and-file would joke.  
  
Costa grimaced. 07-C is an ass. A smart, exceptionally capable ass, who should be manning an ER; if ex-military equipment was allowed in such places. Still, it was good work on Colburn's part when she's snagged the pack of them at a government auction. He fired up his internal phone and dialed out, walking behind Kole and stopping by Chris.  
  
<Detective Costa. Are you experiencing trauma?> Came the Autodoc's clipped response over the mental phone.

<Thankfully no. It went smoother then I anticipated.> 'It' being the confrontation down in the motor pool.

I have authorization from Kole for a copy of your report on Celn.>

<Verifying. Accepted. Sending. A truly grotesque piece of work. If I wasn't under a gag order, I would publish the report. Names censored for privacy of course.>

Costa raised his only eyebrow. <Thank you for the report, Doctor,> and he killed the call.  
  
"That's the last one. I think." Chris said, handing the pad back to the robot behind the desk. "You're approved for a 7 to 10 day paid leave." it intoned. "Enjoy your vacation."  
  
"Walk with me Chris. I need to hit my office before we go to your room."

"We?"

"Yup. I'm your best friend for the next week."


	15. Forced Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris spends a week at a hotel while Detective Costa tries to figure out if abuse is really happening. Meanwhile, Hawker gets punished with another drone frame as Colburn plays AI shrink.

The Palmer House Hilton Hotel sounded exotic and stuffy. Instead it is slightly posh and really pleasent off season. Roman had been here four times on business, but never really found a reason to stay. Last time had been an ugly murder, jilted lovers. The hotel had decided to seal that room up afterward; no one wanted that kind of luck.

Chris ripped open a package of black t-shirts; removing stickers as he heaped them with the other clothes they picked up on the way. He might actually have a suitcase full after this. "So, what lovely plans do you have for me?"

"Quiet dinners that don't come from processed slurry. I don't know how the hell you eat in the free cafeteria." Costa relaxed in a chair, the suite had two bedrooms and likely would've cost a fair orice if they weren't getting it during an off week in the off season. "And I've some people lined up for you to talk with. But mostly it's about getting you into the normal world."

"It's free. And I eat with a spoon, sitting at a table." Chris joked, heaping the clothes into the provided bag for the laundry service. Moments later he joined the man, sitting down in the opposite chair. Then he pulled out his phone and began to fiddle.

"I don't do normal."

"God, you sound just like him."

"Heh, yeah."

"What's your story Chris? I mean, really."

"Bad. Now I'm a cop. What's yours? Do you need to charge up?"

"Technically no. But I have to eat like a bodybuilder if I don't. You should see me at a buffet. Short story is an IED during the winter war here in Chicago."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. It's not all bad though, I've got a good long retirement to look forward too."

"Does he get to retire?"

Costa paused to think about that. "I'm not sure. Most AI tend to want to do their jobs forever. Eventually metal fatigue means the chassis is gonna go out, then it'll be retired. Might get a new one? Who knows at that point."

"Sooo.. can I text him?"

"I'd prefer it if you didn't. He's being punished after all. Some of that means keeping you two apart." He held up his hands, one flesh and one metal; and separated the two.

Celn thought about that. Technically, this WAS all Hawker's fault.

"Eeeeh. Fine. When's my first appointment with a shrink?"

"Never, didn't call any."

Chris looked surprised and put his phone down. "Really? You aren't pulling my leg?"

"Nope. Cross my cardiovascular pump and hope to die. No shrinks. You've spoken with them enough you'd probably pass the exams to qualify."

"Heh-heeeeh." Chris sighed. "Yeah. Lunch?"

"Let's."

\--------------

That afternoon, they'd visited a human & AI couples retreat. Chris spent two hours talking with one of the mediators (shrink); getting a better understand of what he might expect. Costa had ensured doctor-patient confidentiality; and because the conversation wasn't directed at him, Chris had no problem outlining his desire for a 15 foot tall 'construction' robot. 'Well Chris, may I call you Chris? Well Chris, this is perfectly natural. You should have no shame, AI are just as smart and emotional as people. That size difference though, can be dangerous to your physical health. A construction machine can hurt you badly. You should strongly consider a surrogate body for your partner. One more compatible with yours, we have many models available for rent here.." Chirs paid CLOSE attention to that sales pitch.

Costa had taken several walks and at one point needed to excused himself. He'd read the report on Celn. He ended up outside, picking up rocks at the end of a pond and breaking them into smaller rocks before turning those into fine powder granules.

"Figures." Chris spoke, making the detective jump. He hadn't been paying attention, the rookie managed to sneak up on him. "Someone would get a way to finance lust in this town. Apparently it's legal as long as there's a maximum of one human."

"What..? ah. yeah. Can't exactly get privacy here either."

"Hmmm. Still, we talked about things. Said it was pretty common to uh, get romantic with a lined partner. She also said it tended to burn out fast. Who knows. Maybe we'll just be professional after a few months?"

True to his word, Costa didn't have any Shrinks go after Celn. He did have the kid quadruple examined, from his brainpan down to his peptides. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the skin trauma.

The last person though, came from some of Roman's more.. interesting cases. "Got a guest coming by. I'll be over in my room with my ears off."

Chris wasn't sure what to expect, except that Costa had him wear the pilot suit...

Oh. OH. Well..! "Hi there." Chris grinned big.

The man who walked in filled the doorway, closing it behind him. Not handsome, but a strong jaw and a build that had to come from the marines. Those big boots stomped the carpet flat, and he clomped right up to Celn and  _loomed._

"You a cop, boy?" deep authoritative voice with a slight southern drawl.

"Actually... yeah. I am."

The big man cracked a grin and laughed, slapping a hand down hard on that rubber shoulder. "Damn! Thought I might have gotten lucky. Call me Hoss kid. Is that bourbon?"

"Yeah uh.." Hoss obviously was a stud-for-hire. "So um, what are you here? Not that I mind the way you brighten up the room.."

"Well, aren't you a little flatterer. With a suit like that, you've got a man who makes you whimper. Right?"

"Uuuh.. yeeees?"

"You ever been with a real man before, kiddo?"

Clink blinked as the intimidating male returned, a glass full of neat bourbon.

"Aside from him, no."

"Mmm. See, I'm here to educate you the boring way. Your friend.." he sloshed the cup toward Roman's suite, the alcohol dripped onto his thumb. "..is a friend of mine. I kinda own him, so this is a nice way to pay off one of many favors." Without pausing, he switched hands and used Chris's mouth to wipe his digit clean. "Heh. Damn, cute and pliable. You're a natural at this. Your guy ever decides you aren't worth it? I'll be happy to pick up your leash."

Chris started at the muscled male, eyes open wide.

"I.. okay uh.. then maybe you should tell me what I should know. I'm.. going into this blind. He's got experience but.. uh.. "

"Nice bruise. Guessing there's more?" Hoss inquired, his breath warm from the drink.

"Oh yeah!" came the happy response.

"Fffffffuck! Why are all the good ones taken?" A massive index finger pushed into Chris's nose. "You are sittin' on my lap."

Throat quenched, boy on bulge, hand firmly exploring the exquisite rubber suit, Hoss laid down the knowledge that'd save this cop from getting ruined in bed.

Two hours later..

As far as favors went, he wasn't sure if he could even call this evening payin'! The sweet little twink had a nice build under that rubber and Hoss just wanted to see those lips wrapped around his infamous boy-breaker. HRRRRF! He's left his number, just in case. Ah well. He closed the door behind himself and pulled out his phone and fired up Grinder. He'd wreck someone in honor of that boy.

\-----------------

Coming back to 42 wasn't so bad. Chris felt relaxed, refreshed. Bruise free. Costa had cooled down as well, and gotten to know Celn about as good as he could have hoped. THe rookie really was bright and kind and sweet. He also had a deep need to be controlled, abused and left limping. That was how the scabber felt loved.

So it didn't surprise Roman an iota when Chris told Sergeant Kole: "Yes Sir. I want to get right back in the saddle. And yes, I do intend to continue our romance sir."

 

* * *

_Log #2109 for October 20th, 2056. REVISED: October 28th, 5056._

Celn arrived at lower motor pool on time. We began the fitness routine, which he excelled at given his physical parameters. A heated disagreement, left unresolved from an earlier neurospace session in the crash room, grew too heated to leave our training uninterrupted. After an exchange of words concerning the incident - which Colburn has thoroughly documented - Celn and I managed to move on to friendlier interactions. At 1309 hours he was dismissed for the rest of the day. At 1500 Celn was received by medical for further monitoring of the state of his implant, which was showing signs of tissue stress. I requested night wireless access to see if I could gain a clearer understanding of how Celn's emotions and reason worked when he was not in my presence. My request was granted by Chief Engineer Sarah Colburn.

I observed his interactions with other pilots and officers throughout the evening, and when Celn forgot to remove the device for sleep, I was subjected to the imagery of his REM cycles, some of which were sexual in nature, and prominently featured myself. I grew... curious. At some point in the night, maybe around 0200, Celn removed the wireless link.

Notes: None.

\---

Log #2115b for October 23rd, 2056. REVISED: October 28th, 5046.  
Continued crash room evac training as originally specified. Original reports for testing remain valid: Celn far exceeded expectations. At 0415, my pilot was too exhausted to continue exercises, so as per Colburn's recommendation, we headed for the wash. We exchanged friendly banter, some... flirting. Afterwards, during off-hours, the both of us together sought privacy for relations of a sexual nature.

Further information about the encounter are withheld from this report.

Notes: None.

\---

Kole read through the revised reports with his eyes - all 16 of them - taking a few minutes longer than Costa with his uplink abilities. The pieces were beginning to come together; the timeline, making more sense.

"It... checks out, boss," the cyborg said with a sigh, chewing on a pen cap again and fisting a cup of coffee. He was jonesing for his smoke break. "At least, they've got their story tighter than a hangman's noose."

Kole chuckled wearily, then sighed, then folded his arms and sat staring in the general direction of his collection of framed awards and certificates. "Then tell me why the hell I still don't trust that damn machine, Roman."

The detective drew his lips into a tight, skewed line. When his skin was stressed to this extent, it had a habit of wrinkling a little where organic met synthetic. His prostheses were some 15 years old, before they perfected the BioDerm technology that allowed the near-perfect replacement of Chris' fingers. "You know, maybe the damn Vanguard was right. Maybe all that stands between... whatever they got going on and condemning your DF2 for rape and aggravated assault is  _trust_."

The sergeant grumbled, tightening the fold of his arms. If one Costa didn't know better, then it might've looked like the man was pouting. "As a cop, as a husband, as a damn  _human being_  I can't accept that answer. I need  _proof_. I need to know for certain that I'm not just throwing that kid to the wovles again by letting him near that AI."

"You've got that place covered in cameras now, Kole. All you can do now is watch, listen, and wait for him to come to you if he needs to." Costa took the whole pen cap into his mouth and sucked on it like thermoplastic candy, worrying at it with his metal molars. Kole huffed and sat silent as he brooded and thought. "One of the hardest parts of my job has always been walking away from an abuse case where I don't have enough evidence. Walking away from a victim that you aren't even sure is a victim if it weren't for your gut screamin' at you."

Kole just scowled at the wall.

"But the  _worst_  thing you can do to someone in Chris' situation is decide what their feelings are  _for_  them."

"So that's that, then?"

Costa rose from his chair, the metal creaking. "That's that, Sarge. Unless Chris decides otherwise. Now when he comes through that door to talk to you in the next half hour, you remember what I said."

Kole just nodded and scratched his nose.

\---

"Everything seems to be normal," said Dr. Bea Morris, professor of Machine Psychology and director of MI Studies at Illinois Tech, as she looked over the series of large screens in Colburn's workshop. They'd spent all day going through a static download of Hawker's DF2 intelligence network to see if they, in Colburn's words, "couldn't find any glaring miswrites".

"There's some remnants of old stuff here for sure," the 60-year old cyborg woman said, her synthetic fingers lightly dancing across the readouts to zoom in here, or scroll around there, or plot these data with different parameters. One one screen was a visual representation of most of Hawker's neural patterns (plotting them all would have been almost impossible without more heavy-duty computing power). It looked like a spider web of fractals; a dizzying mass of filaments rendered in a dozen different colors, each of their vertices an image or emotion or idea. Colburn could look at that and get a general idea about what parts of the mech's "brain" were being utilized the most, where most of his information was being stored and how. To her, it was like looking at an MRI. But to Dr. Morris, it was like reading a book. " _Very_  old stuff, in fact," she continued, pondering this. "Which shouldn't be surprising, seeing as how it's a military hand-me-down. It looks like the connections being made to those older points of information, broken as they are, have gotten more robust over the past few weeks."

This is exactly what Colburn wasn't wanting to hear. She suppressed a groan of frustration, though, because Morris wasn't done yet.

"But look, here." She gestured with a graceful sweep of a silicone finger. "This cluster over here. The size of this region should be indicative of the depth of your AI's emotional intelligence." She toggled a slider on another screen to change between two different dates. She gasped, smiling. "Look, look! It's  _grown_  in the same period of time! I've never seen this rate of development before. Something about these wiped data is triggering a  _tremendous_  emotional response from this AI. It's adapting very quickly to whatever stimuli this all has provided."

"Really?" Colburn's jaw dropped.

Morris could hardly contain her excitement, as a matter of fact. "Really! You know, Sarah, I'd love to sit down with that mech some time and do a proper case study. There might be something really interesting going on, here."

Colburn stuffed her hands in her lab coat pockets, looking over the screens again. "You don't say," she muttered. Again, the images of Chris covered in blue and purple invaded her thoughts and she had to fight a shudder.

"Anyways, without spending a month here, I don't see anything wrong, exactly. What was the problem you were having, again?"

The Chief let out a  _very_  long sigh. "A, uh... nothing, I guess."

\---

Later, Colburn collapsed into a lumpy sofa in one of the break rooms to check her messages and nurse a Mars bar. There was a message from Costa to Kole, and Colburn was CC'd. The subject read: 'BDSM resources'.

 

* * *

 

 

 

As detective Costa took the first step toward the office door, a though occurred to Kole. "Roman, you've known plenty of people who enjoy this  _kind_  of life. Right?"

The robotic side of the detective turned to meet his Sergeant. "Yeah, plenty." THe poor pen wasn't long for the world as it bounced and bobbled.

"How many end up on a slab? From going too far, or something else I can't even think of right now?"

"Almost none. Less then 1%. These are people who get to live out their most lurid fantasies. Most of them are damn normal in their daily lives." Costa turned back and approached the door, knowing the question would come.

"What about that one percent? We both know Chris's luck will have him land square on it."

"The one in control not realising what they are doing to the submissive. We both know how far the HLX can go to keep a pilot alive. You really think Hawker's going to let Celn die?"

Kole couldn't see it, but he could hear that smirk. One thing is for certain; the Deep Field 2 wasn't going to lose another pilot. "I'll keep that in mind."

\---

The Chief let out a very long sigh. "A, uh... nothing, I guess."

"Sarah, you wouldn't have asked me here if there wasn't a problem." Morris let a grin lift up the skin that remained on her face. "I've heard rumors. And it's not difficult to surmise what's causing new mental growth." Her artificial eyes literally twinkled. "You have a new pilot."

"Prospective pilot, Bea." The Chief Engineer admitted. "They've been at it for about two weeks."

"This?" her touchpad digits worked a touchpad screen "This is 14 days? I want to meet the pilot as well. The AI is developing in response to their joint brainpower." Her body is mostly cybernetic, one of the humans who willingly undergo organ and limb replacement as time takes it's toll. D.r Morris might live to see 160.

Chris laying on the massive desk, the HLX casually breaking the rookie's arm.

Colburn shrugged her shoulders. "Again, prospective pilot. Young, not from a military background. If he can get up to physical and training standards, we might have the Deep Field 2 back in action six months from now."

"Interesting. If I may offer my hypothesis on based on this evidence?"

"Go ahead."

"The DF2 has completely invested all of it's developmental growth in the organic mind it's chosen. What we can see here is a whole new set of structures for interfacing with a mind. THe other halves of your pilot's gears. It's just.." crossing her arms, index fingers tapping. "..new growth like this  **is**  unusual. Non-military pilot. Hmmm."

"This all can't be because our pilot is a civilian. That's inefficient growth." Countered Colburn.

"You're right of course. The DF2 loves efficency. I need to observe more to give you an answer. Could I at least have a day?" Bae had the look of a first-year grad student with an idea.

Sarah groaned. She wanted to have Morris's opinion but they had a reporter to deal with as well. And the good doctor of science had plenty of places to be. "Fine. You can have a day. Think you can help me do an attitude adjustment on one of my autodocs?"

\---

Chris is wearing the pilot suit. Kole didn't even need to hear what'd been said, the pilot is wearing chis choice. Right now a reporter was discussing the situation with the PR director.

"Officer Celn, do you understand my concerns?"

"I probably don't sir." Chris cautiously answered.

At least the kid wasn't a complete fool. "I'm concerned your dick is going to get you killed." Kole bluntly stated.

"I.. uh. Wow." Chris paused. "I do want to live a good long time Sir. We'll set down ground rules and abide by them."

"Will he?"

"He wants me more then he's willing to admit."

Costa chuckled. "He admitted it at the top of his lungs kid."

Chris nodded up and down. "Yes sir. More then he's admitted."

Kole laced his fingers together. He had glanced over the primar. "He  _wants_  you? You're an Officer in  **My**  precinct."  
He began to hold up fingers, laying down HIS rules. "You are always to be fit for your duties as a pilot, we could need the HLX at any moment. And the press WILL see you, there's one here today already. That means  _Nothing_  Visibly Suspicious. A hug or handshake is fantastic on clickbait. Anything isn't."

The senior man stared hard into the kid's face. "THere will be more rules, but these you BOTH will exist by. If you choose not to; you'll be out with a discharge before  _yours_  finishes. If he chooses not to, then I'll put him in a box and use it as target practice."

Chris stood upright, arms at his sides. "Yes Sir! I won't let you down."

As he signed the paperwork taking Chris off leave, Kole already had a new stipulation. "And stop scaring Colburn. You two will make efforts to be -nice- around her."

 

 

* * *

 

"That Celn kid is back today," Thule said as he checked a wrist connection to small-Hawker's left hand. He'd gotten used to being a mere six-foot and change over the past week, but still - the bigger, the better he'd always thought. "In case nobody told you."

Brendan Thule wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, and he ran his mouth a little too much at times, but Hawker was grateful that not everybody had decided to treat him like a pariah since the 'Intervention', as rumors were calling it. The past week had seen him develop a filter though at least, and Hawker was surprised that anybody would even  _think_  of telling him that his 'victim' was back from leave.

"Thanks, specialist. Kole told me already, though."

"Did Kole tell you that that dude from the Tribune was up on the pilots' floor and breathing down their necks for four hours yesterday?"

Hawker just cocked his head at his personal tech in lieu of a brow plate.

Thule snorted. "Yeah. Kept asking if any of them have piloted you, can pilot you, and if he'd get to see somebody pilot you."

The mech knew he wanted to kill this man already. "And?"

"The answer was no, no, and probably not." A little jolt of current in the wire, and his fingers spasmed accordingly. All done. Thule disconnected his diagnostic pad from a small port in Hawker's back, and put the whole ensemble away on a service cart amid cans of WD40, a set of jeweler's tools, and half-used rolls of electrical tape in a rainbow of colors. "Bad news though, boss. He somehow managed to get wind that Chris wanted to see you after coming back, so he plans on documenting the occasion."

"You've  _got_  to be kidding me!" He shook his head and groaned. The speakers on this body were better. The subwoofers  _almost_  captured the depth of his timbre. "I'm not allowed to say a goddamn  _word_  to him."

Thule shrugged. "Kole wasn't about to tell the guy no. We need the good press right now."

" _I_  need the good press right now," he groaned.

"Cheer up, boss." A slap to his shoulder and the mech stiffened with distaste. A reminder that  _this_  is why he wasn't ever keen on being human-sized. "Stay in this body, and you couldn't scare a mouse if it were strapped to a cat's back."

He just made that up, didn't he?

\---

The reporter  _was_  annoying.

"So, uh, when do I get to see Big Nine? You know, Chicago's 'Long, Metal Arm of the Law'?" He was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, which was his first mistake. He also wore khakis and a mint green polo shirt under his jacket, which was his second.

"I  _am_  Big Nine," Hawker said, folding the arms of his small black-and-white body. Kole hadn't given him clearance to resume his old self again, which was frustrating at best.

James McConnell twisted up his face in disappointment. "This some kind of joke? Where's the HLX-9?"

"The #9081 body is... in for repairs. I'm the AI that  _lives_  there, though."

He secretly hoped that Chris would decide to go get lunch or something instead of come down here right now. Maybe Mr. McConnell would get bored and go snooping around somewhere else.

"You are?" He perked up again. "Great, could I ask you a few questions in the meantime, then?"

"You can, but I won't answer them."

"I... what? You sure?"

The smaller mech stepped up to Mr. McConnell, invading his personal space. Arms crossed. He could at least still play the Big Guy. "Do I  _look_  like the indecisive sort to you?"

"N...no, sir." He fumbled for his phone and quickly jotted down a few notes.  _HLX-9: Big man on campus. Rude af._

"Now if you'll excuse me, I haven't seen my pilot in a week and I'd like it if you weren't in my goddamn face when he arrives."

 

* * *

 

Chris finished writing a text file on his computer. The text file is titled 'The_Rules.txt' he shared it with Hawker, before slapping a password on the damn thing.  
\--  
The_Rules.txt

0) New rules may be added at any time.  
1) Pilot is always to be fit for duty, 24/7.  
2) Pilot is visibly uninjured or minimally visibly injured at all times.  
3) Pilot is to act normally in public spaces. Handshakes and hugs are appropriate. All other PDAs are not.  
4) Pilot and AI are to engage in behavior that eases concern of upper staff.  
4a) Especially Chief Engineer.

\- Failure to adhere to rules is immediate dismissal and/or erasure.

\--

Chris hoped Hawker would understand.

Last week had been a blast. Who knew Costa was actually fun? It'd opened up a new world to him, but he also felt the weight on his shoulders. All of this interaction with 42's elite is because of him and Hawker. He needed to measure up AND not fuck up. Goody. He needed lunch. He needed Hawker. He wanted to feet that three foot dick on his fresh rubber.

THe pilot suit sat perfectly on his frame now. They needed to work up a proper training schedule. With regular hours so he could get something approach a -routine-.

Walking out of his room, he saw Becker giving him the stinkeye.

"What?"

"You know what! Hawker's been bugging me about being a backup. It's a joke. He just wants to dick me around in neurospace."

<How perceptive of you Becker.> "Look, you need to either step up or shut up. I've been here eight days and I'm tired of hearing about how you're ready for the big league."

"Oh! The greenhorn DOES have a backbone! Maybe you'd like a little sim time with me as well." sneered the veteran pilot.

"Why? We both know I'm  _better_  then you." Chris snarked.

Becker stood upright, trying to impress the rookie. "Celn, do you know a reporter is walking around; asking about Big Nine?"

Chris leaned against a wall, wondering why he was winding up a senior pilot and a higher ranking officer. He shook his head no as he crossed his arms.

"Spend about an hour up here, escorted. Now he's probably talking to the HLX. WHo's currently stuffed into a standard civilian frame."

Chris shrugged. "Allright."

"Gave us all his number, in case we had some 'information' or hot tips." Even made the air-quotes with his fingers.

"Okay."

Becker paused, Chris looked bored. "Watch yourself greenhorn. You fuck up and suddenly everyone will know that you're not worth your blues." Then he stalked off, taking the elevator off to a different part of the precinct.

Chris wanted his Hawker. And he had to wait a long time for the elevator to return.

\---------------

"Just a few more questions, Captian." McConnell started firing them off fast and furious

"Who is your new pilot? What is your pilot's background? How long has your pilot trained? Does he like the Cub's chances for the pennant this year? How long until you're on regular patrols? Do you think that it's a poor idea to integrate so much military into the police force. What's it like being human sized? Are you aware that there's a betting pool if you make it with your current pilot? Are you dressing up for Halloween? Are the rumours true that you have a second pilot picked out when your first choice fails?"

 

* * *

 

Cory didn't know where he was going, but when he ended up at 42's private Starbucks, he didn't complain. "Uh, venti PSL," he mumbled at the single barista. Starbucks had maintained a "Human-Made" policy when it came to their coffees. Cashiers were long gone, but in the interest of avoiding being turned into a glorified vending machine, they made it so that customers could still have the satisfaction of a truly "hand-crafted coffee experience". Becker didn't care either way, but was grateful when the barista turned out to be cute, like this one. Under other circumstances he would have leaned suggestively at the counter, pretending to be really interested in what she was doing and showing off his guns. But this shit with Chris was bugging the  _hell_  out of him.

And he wasn't quite sure why, even.

Was it jealousy? Yeah, probably. Cory Becker had worked his ass off at the academy, did everything he could to raise his classification. Ate right, choked down a  _lot_  of gingko caps and a  _lot_  of vials of ginseng, and got a square 8 hours a night as often as he could manage it. He did puzzles, too - sudoku, crossword, anything else he could get his hands on - while everyone else was partying and gaming. In the end, he'd gone from a B-class candidate to a firm A by the time he got his implant, opening up a lot more doors and upping his prospective earnings by at least 8 G's a year. Of course, you only made so much piloting an MRAV. The big bucks lay in doing work with mechs like Hawker.

And Chris? That short, skinny scab who could barely do a few pull-ups just waltzed in here, kissed Big Nine's ass, and just like that, he was suddenly Lee's replacement. So was it jealousy? Yeah, definitely.

At least Lee had  _earned_ his place as the Midwest's favorite pilot.

But it was concern, too. Everyone saw the big guy change after the funeral. Nobody called it mourning, but that's exactly what it was. He grew colder and harder, withdrawing from his friendlier interactions with the rest of the precinct to... what? Who knows what that AI did during those long hours alone. He spent a lot of time in the sim room, though. Inquiring minds eventually discovered that he'd been using a half-dozen different simulations from the Siberian War. That's where he'd come from before being decommissioned and sent to Chicago, but it was almost like the mech was looking for something there, in that reconstructed past.

And now his treatment of that damn flimsy specialist-class scab. Did he deserve to be piloting an HLX-9? If Cory Becker was honest with himself, he didn't think so. But he damn well didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of the mech's proverbial mid-life crisis, either.

"Here you go, sir."

The drink was perfect. Warm, sugary, tasted like Christmas was on the horizon. Almost made him feel a bit better, even.

But he knew that this situation was only going to get weirder if it wasn't going to get worse. And at the end of the day, all Becker wanted was for things to be back to the way they were. 42 was a little less complicated a year ago, but you can't turn back the clock or raise the dead. No, you lace up your boots and march forward, right? Or is that something Lee would have said?

At this point, though, Becker was thinking that he might look forward to an opportunity to link up with Hawker. Maybe see if he couldn't prove a thing or two.

\---

"Just a few more questions, Captian."

"I  _told_  you -"

"Who is your new pilot? What is your pilot's background? How long has your pilot trained? Does he like the Cub's chances for the pennant this year? How long until you're on regular patrols? Do you think that it's a poor idea to integrate so much military into the police force. What's it like being human sized? Are you aware that there's a betting pool if you make it with your current pilot? Are you dressing up for Halloween? Are the rumours true that you have a second pilot picked out when your first choice fails?"

Hawker glanced around, thumb on that mouthless chin. Nobody of real consequence was here, and it's not like these questions were about  _him_. Or even particularly sensitive. Maybe if he answered them the man would move on to a new victim.

He fired off his answers as quickly as he'd been asked: "Chris Celn. I'm not at liberty to say. Three weeks. Patrol dates TBD. No comment. I've experienced worse. I am. I am not. And that backup pilot in question needs to prove himself first before I do any  _picking_." Then, with a snort: "As for baseball, you know, I think he  _might_  be a Yankees fan." Mr. McConnell balked, jotting down the appalling news, and Hawker laughed in his foreprocessors.

 

* * *

 

Chris got dumped out on floor one, just a single story above where the precinct open to the ground. Costa had told him about the reporter. 'Best get used to it kid. Lee had to do public speaking as well.'

He was about to ask where Hawker was, when he heard the low rumbling of a familiar voice. Following the sounds, he found a hallway that had a number of rooms with dark open doors; and one with the light on.

McConnell hurriedly jotted down the notes of the interview. He held up the phone and snapped a discreet photograph of the mech. 'Captain Hawker, the intelligence of Big Nine when he's not a colossus.'

"Now when can I speak with your new pilot?"

Chris is just three steps from walking in when he -heard- that comment about the damnable Yankees. Oh. Oh somebot is going to get it!

"If you want to talk sports, I think Captain Hawker prefers the Maple Leafs." came the sly retort. Chris strolled into the room with a smile on his face. He wore that piloting suit, it did a fantastic job of showing off his athletic figure while ensuring his package simply is expressed as a pleasant bulge. He offered a hand to the reporter, who shoot it excitedly.

"Nice to met you Officer Celn. COuld I get a photo of you next to the Captain?"

Chris purposely parked his perky rubber cheeks on the robot's thighs, and positioned his hand so it wouldn't advertise what sat tightly packed between his legs.

"Excellent. You're on the smaller side for an Officer, Mr. Celn."

"Pilots have to be. Between 5-5 and 5-10 is the usual range to fit."

"How long have you been with this Precinct?"

"Just transferred actually."

"Oh excellent, where were you before?"

"Specialised Augmented Piloting School. I'm recently implanted."

"Before that?" McConnell raised an eyebrow as he took notes.

"The Police Academy."

"That's quite the jump! How do you feel about piloting the Big Nine?"

"It's a tremendous opportunity, one I am thankful for."

"Does he outrank you?"

"Yes. Police Dogs outrank their handlers as well."

"Interesting outfit you're wearing, can you tell me about it?"

"Piloting suit, freshly cast. I need to wear it for a good two weeks before it retains my shape."

"All day? And, are you aware that there's a healthy betting pool on your ability to integrate with Big Nine?"

"No, thankfully. And I'd like to let anyone who didn't be on us becoming a unit, that they bet wrong."

James chuckled, Chris might be a fantastic source of information. He'd have to get him alone at some point, the robot behind him still had it's hand on the young pilot's shoulder. "One last question: How do you think you'll avoid befalling the same fate as Officer Lee Davidson?"

Despite Hawker's reaction, Chris frowned. "Mr. Davidson was a fantastic pilot and one of Chicago's finest. No comment. Excuse us, we're needed elsewhere."

Motioning for the shrunken Captain to follow Celn stalked out. The two of them got into the elevator, and Chris it the button for the motor pool. "Colburn needs us in one of the labs. Something about a Doctor Morris. And it's damn good to see you again."

 

* * *

 

_"If you want to talk sports, I think Captain Hawker prefers the Maple Leafs."_

If this body could stare daggers, he would've made it. However, it would have just been a cover up. Hawker was...  _happy_  to hear that familiar charming voice of his pilot again. And he was still in that damnable suit!  _He's never looked better,_  the mech decided smugly, feeling a sense of pride in who the kid was shaping up to be. That fine piece of capable ass was  _his_.

Or... well, was he? He'd gone over Kole's  **Rules**  probably twenty times since Chris shared it with him. This was going to be aggravating at best.  _Fucking **cockblocked**  is more like it._ Still, it was... giving the two of them much more than they were owed. Officers were rarely permitted to serve alongside partners and spouses, and it was usually strongly encouraged that one of them consider a career in pencil pushing instead.

"Bruins," Hawker corrected, wagging his finger and trying to sound stern as Chris took his place at his side. Chris, he wanted to touch him...

_"Nice to met you Officer Celn. Could I get a photo of you next to the Captain?"_

The swell of Chris' snugly encased derriere pressed enticingly up against the mech's hard thigh and this time he was able to feel it. Pleasure centers tingled with want, but without anywhere to  _direct_  it, his CPUs just dumped the files as he looked on in wordless irritation. He was glad this body didn't have a face either. No smiles to fake.

Chris stayed parked there while Mr. McConnell finally unleashed his salvo of questions. Hawker's hand found its way to the kid's shoulder and he held on with not a little possessive body language.  _You corner him and I will end you._

And it almost came to that.

_"One last question: How do you think you'll avoid befalling the same fate as Lee Davidson?"_

The mech's internals suddenly kicked into a higher gear, his ambient hum growing louder as he leaned forward in a subtle threat display. But Chris didn't take the bait.

_"Mr. Davidson was a fantastic pilot and one of Chicago's finest. No comment. Excuse us, we're needed elsewhere."_

Hawker's hand was still on the kid's shoulder as they exited the conference room. "I'm sure you can show yourself out," he said curtly.

Then, like that, the two of them were in the elevator together. Alone for the first time in 8 days? 9?

_"Colburn needs us in one of the labs. Something about a Doctor Morris. And it's damn good to see you again."_

The doors closed, and the mech hit the bright red button labelled 'STOP'. As the car ground to a halt, Hawker was  _on him_.

Hips pinning hips, one hand on the small of the human's back, the other cradling his neck, thumb roughly following the swell of his lip. This body was just as tall as the previous one, but a little more built - heavier. He bent his head and touched their foreheads, as his touch grew a little harsher. A little bulge firmed up against the metal of Hawker's sexless codpiece, and his air cycling let out a sharp gust.

"It sure is, isn't it?" he said, voice deep and husky.

 

* * *

 

Chris shuddered from his neck to navel, legs spreading so Hawker could be between them. His hands moved with their own will, touching along the chest, over the curves of the powerful torso. THe found their way to the broad back of the automaton and Chris pulled himself tight.

"Gods I missed you!" Those red lips part for the inquisitive thumb. His teeth gently bite, tongue slips over the rubber haptic pad.

"Wish you had a body like this you could use. Just be with me when I'm not in your Vanguard Chassis." He quivered again, moving nose enough to kiss that metallic neck, his teeth clacking and tongue slipping along wires,tubes and aluminum.

"The rules are what they are. Think it's pretty fair, considering how they feel about us." His voice went quiet. "As long as I get to be with you, Captain."

He brought up one hand to hold the back of the mech's neck, the other resting on an alloy hip as he pressed up close and tight. He could feel the intelligence, the power of his Boss in that little body.

If the mech had a dick, he'd be on his knees right now. Or on the wall, legs around the waist of the robot.

"Can't stay in here forever... mmmpf. Someone might have to walk for a doughnut."

 

* * *

 

Suddenly the possibilities opened up by having a smaller frame made Hawker reconsider the merits of  _not_  being 15 feet tall. He was still  _comparatively_  large,  _comparatively_  heavy,  _comparatively_  strong.

Chris' mouth felt like dim heaven as he worried at the thick digit. The layer of transparent silicone over the handsome joints glistened with warm saliva. Hawker fought the urge to grope his tonsils.

_"Gods I missed you!"_

"You too, kiddo."

_"Wish you had a body like this you could use. Just be with me when I'm not in your Vanguard Chassis."_

"So long as I can still give every human in this place a run for their money, it's not off the table," he chuckled against the kid's smooth neck. "I have needs, too, you know. And one of those is the need to be a killing machine at every size."

_"As long as I get to be with you, Captain."_

He nodded faintly, drawing his head back to look Chris in his handsome little face. "We'll do what we need to do. Because like  _hell_  am I losing another pilot." If he was using the p-word here as some kind of code, then not even he really knew it. But it was the best word he could come up with to sum up what the kid meant to him. Pilots, suffice to say, meant a lot to their sapient machines.

_"Can't stay in here forever... mmmpf. Someone might have to walk for a doughnut."_

"I know." A machine sigh, then a quick stroke against that swell in the rubber between the young man's thighs, and Hawker stepped away. "Though I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to get my - er,  _these_  - hands on you." Then, with a lilt on his voice: "Hopefully that'll tide you over until I can have you  _proper-like_."

He hit the button again, and the elevator car resumed its upward trajectory.

"Now what's this about Dr. Morris, again? Haven't seen her in years..."


	16. Halloween *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the party.

Dr. Morris is beyond human and she enjoyed using the extra time between moments to study the world around her. Sarah had worry etched into her face, and now Bea knew it wasn't from a mistake or a glitch in Hawker's stability system. The cheif engineer was worried that an error 8 years ago was coming back to haunt her. And it wasn't fair to blame the police engineer, she had spend countless hours trying to rescue that metallic giant.

And what success! Without the effort of Big Nine, there would hell on the streets of the windy city.

Hawker watched the pilot. And not with a passing glance, it would continually keep it's visual sensors on the young human. As Chris walked up the short flight of stairs onto the lab platform, he kicked his toe on the uppermost step. A little half stumble that most people would forget in a second. The tall robot paused for a sixtieth of a second, judging.

The deep field 2 is checking to make sure that even a tiny misstep wouldn't .. hurt? No. It didn't move to catch the human. It was watching for critical damage then?

Fascinating!

"Hello Mr. Celn. Hello Captain Hawker. It's been at least 6 years sense I've seen you." The transhumanist held her elbow with one hand and stroked along her artifical with the other. "I know you've plenty to accomplish, and I'm here as a favor to CF Colburn. We've noticed some interesting developments in the operational fractals of your cortex recursion loop."

"We have the equipment here tuned to allow a monited pass through." Colburn explained; "It will feel like you've just plugged into the HLX cockpit. You'll have a number of exercises, questions, and interactions to work through as a team."

"Uh, Ma'ams, what exactly is expected of us? SHould I be attempting any specific goals?" Chris asked, feeling like he had NO clue what the women were talking about.

"Try and act as cohesively as possible. We'll be watching where your minds come together. The gears meshing between organic and synthetic." Morris dumed it down. A cute young man, but not the the most educated. She pulled up his profile for the 6th time that hour.

Hmm. Perhaps it was that lack of formative education in his life? All AIs had to self-determine when in their education, Chris might just -think- a bit more like his AI partner? SO many unanswered questions! What were they doing that is creating such immense growth in those dormant areas? If Bea could re-create that kind of effect, it might solve some of the worst problems with AI development!

Or it could be a lucky fluke. Chris had abnormally high scores for a specialist. Perhaps he simply got lucky on his implant.

Chris felt the normal grasp of the automated interface. He couldn't' see, but closeby was hawker.  
So very close.  
And then, the monitored connection formed.

\-----

Eight hours later, the system shut down safely. Chris felt wiped out, he didn't even move off the chair.

"This data is excellent." Dr Morris's pleased voice echoed, as it had in neurospace. "What do you think Sarah?"

Colburn had been dreading this moment. Letting the caged monster back with it's prey. They had been friendly. Chris got swallowed within the shell of the AI, then they simply functioned. She'd been able to verify that Hawker was NOT somehow getting into Chris's mind. That implanted failsafe still is working.

The only moments that'd raised concern was during the final separation. The feed had gone fuzzy for three seconds, just an explosion of color. Usually the result of emotion venting? But both seemed complete calm.

"I think that Clen needs to sleep, and that Hawker's batteries are around 5%."

"The data! I can return in a few weeks." her fingers danced with lighting quickness over the controls.

"I know Morris. I don't have an opinion right now. Celn, I want a word. We can talk over dinner."

Before he stumbled off, Chris got a few seconds in the elevator with both Colburn and Hawker. She had purposely stood between them.

"Ma'am?"

"Dinner Celn."

A fleeting touch of his partner's hand, before the robot had to go down to recharge.

\------------------------------

Dinner was in pay cafeteria 4, the one near Colburn's normal office. "Do two did very well in the simulations. I did have an opinion, I just didn't want to tell Bae about it. I don't want you too either."  
"I'm not sure what.. why.. I .." Chris had devoured his dinner, and he looked absolutely mentally worn down.  
"You don't fight his control. He's able to work with machine precision, and you just guide him along. But that means you're having to be deeply connected, it's why you're burning through so many calories."

Chris burped and tapped his chest, feeling some relief. "But that's how this is supposed to work. Right?"

"Yes. You're doing it right out of the gate. You dropped into Hawker and it's like Davidson left you the keys. I'm worried because what happens if you stop getting along so well?"

That one rolled around and bounced about in his mind. FOr about four minutes. "Then I'd have to work around that. Make up."

"Yeah. And what if that happens when he's got you close?"

THis time, he had a fast answer "You'll just have to trust him like I do."

\-----------

October 31.

Chris had an immense smile on his face. He'd gotten into regular exercise, Hawker working him in the gym. More basic training. Still, they hadn't been allowed to have -any- private time with the full 15 foot vanguard. Outside of moment in a closet or abusing the elevator's stop, it had been rough. But Chris would make it.

He held up the costume, one very large batman. Chris had a nightwing for himself, nuts to robin. "C'mon Boss. YOu've got the voice down perfect already."

 

* * *

 

Dr. Bea Morris had had a little more work done since he'd last seen her for one of his final follow-up screenings after the wipe. Looks like the RA had spread not only to both hands, but one of her elbows as well. And her eyes - claimed by cataracts maybe? - now a gorgeous blue. The same type as Roman's, but a much more elegantly modern design. They flicked about the room with keen purpose.

Well this was interesting, the mech decided. He knew that Colburn had made a copy of his AI the day before - the damn process took almost an hour - and he knew that she'd recruited her old friend to take a gander at it. Make sure the giant robot wasn't fucked in the head. But this was the first time that he'd been allowed in to see what they'd uncovered.

The screens, he noticed during the quick stolen glances, painted a curious picture. A 7.6% growth in new neural networks since he and Chris first linked up that day during the tryouts. 5.9% of that growth appeared to be in emotional proficiencies and the building up of emotionally-charged data.

For the rest of the session, Hawker watched Chris like a... well, hawk. It was amusing to see him from this perspective, to imagine that that was  _his_  cockpit seat and  _his_  interface array, but some part of him ached in his chest, wishing that the kid was  _inside, dammit_. Surrounded. Secure. Safe. The Vanguard frame hung over him like a giant phantom limb, and the mech wanted nothing more than to feel that little body settle into him like the massive, dangerous vessel that he was and warm him from the inside out.

The small Hawker folded his arms and shifted his weight along his feet, just watching.

The 8 hours passed quickly. A little too quickly, actually, and the mech had almost forgotten that he was battery-powered for now. Whoops. And he wasn't exactly surprised when Colburn, frowning, face creased with concern, pulled Chris away for dinner. She'd put herself between them like a wall, and the mech didn't even dare try looking his pilot's way. All he got was the brush of a finger against a hand as the two left.

\---

The time that they  _were_  allowed to have together was satisfactory. Physical, at least. Though they couldn't flirt with such lewd shamelesness as they had in previous training sessions, Hawker managed to cop several feels and even gave a hug after Chris goaded him into one by flashing that winning smile of his and promising a kiss.

The other regulars to the motor pool were relaxing around the captain now, though he still didn't feel much like one. It was, he guessed, due in no small part to his more human scale. Everything he loved about being 15 feet and 6 tons were the very things that put others on edge, and thanks to recent 'events', were things that they were suddenly  _very_  wary of. With Lee, it'd been no big deal; in fact, he'd practically been the mascot for 42. But now he had to earn their trust all over again. And if that meant letting the #9081 gather dust for a few days, then so be it.

\---

Earning that trust, apparently, also meant making an appearance to a costume party. He'd been  _invited_ , even. If he went, this would mark a few firsts: first time walking the pilot's wing with his own feet, and his first time partaking in one of 42's infamous Halloween parties.

_"C'mon Boss. YOu've got the voice down perfect already."_

Hawker grabbed the silly thing from Chris and held it up for himself to scrutinize. "I've never worn clothes before," he announced, "And I'm not about to start." Then he draped the black ensemble over Chris' head. "Besides, I heard that that damn newshawk might be poking around again. Not too keen on getting myself in a situation where I'm tempted to dislocate his jaw. Which, apparently, is every moment I'm around him."

Chris freed his head from the fabric with a grumble, and Hawker realized that the costume probably came out of his own pocket. "It...  _would_  be fun to see your room, though," he offered, trying to figure out if there was a way of getting out of wearing the costume without coming across as a  _complete_  jerk. Maybe if he saw the supposedly matching costume that Chris was going to be wearing, he might be convinced...

 

* * *

 

Chris rested the Batman cowl on the table, next to the bag that held the rest of the costume. He stripped down to just his jockstrap, pulling out his costume. Wen gave him a whistle and Chris just shook his head. No privacy down here in the motor pool. SHe had her T5 dolled up like RIpley's suit from aliens, and her costume is on point; even had a rubbery exo to hang from the big hand.

He pulled on one of the older pilot suits, one of Lee's. It gave the cute twink muscles he truly didn't have yet, made him look like a pint-sized powerhouse. It had areas on the back, chest, shoulders and boots that are painted with a shining blue. He'd gotten to the black areas as well, buffed to a shine that reflected off the ambient light. Nightwing from the batman universe. The Robin that grew up and became a Batman in his own right.

He didn't have the gloves or accessories on yet, and the zipper wasn't pulled all the way up. His hair had grown to be just long enough, and he had the black paint to go around his eyes and a fitted mask that would stick to his face.

"Please?" A word he hadn't had a chance to use that often. "You don't have to stay the whole time. Get in your grab, take the photos and socialize for an hour or so. Pretty much everyone will be in there."

The small human turned, showing off his enhanced backside as he worked on applying the small amount of makeup.

"You do have a point. We probably could get some time in my room if you dressed up and came up to our little zone on the 8th floor."

 

* * *

 

Wen gave the greenhorn a wolf whistle, and Hawker laughed. "Took the words right out of my mouth," he called to her, and her own giggle echoed around the concrete fleet bays.

As he pulled the half-finished costume on, the mech set his feet apart, rested his chin in his hand and cocked his head. "Well look at that," he lilted, surveying the view for a moment before reaching out and yanking the zipper up the rest of the way. "You make a pretty good lookin' sidekick."

_"You don't have to stay the whole time. Get in your grab, take the photos and socialize for an hour or so. Pretty much everyone will be in there."_

"If you'll be hanging on my arm looking like that, then... that's a hard-driven bargain," he chuckled. "Well... alright."

Hawker picked up the cowl again - at least it wasn't the entire body-suit. Probably would have ripped it as soon as he sat down, anyways. There were the gauntlets too, and the belt. He put the gloves on experimentally, flexing his fingers in the pleather and decided he liked the way they looked. The spikes along the forearms seemed exciting too.

"Betting pool's gonna love this," he snorted and shook his head.

\---

"Hey guys, Chris finally showed up!" called Ferdinand from where he stood in the kitchenette, pouring rum and cokes. Chris entered first, with Hawker behind. As soon as the tall mech reared the corner behind him, Ferd did a double-take and spilled some of the coke. "...and he brought a  _guest!_ "

Wen, Becker, Tsung, and a couple other folks emerged from the woodwork. Becker was some Lucha Libre in a bright green speedo and red cape, Tsung was Lewis Carol's Alice, and Tsung was probably some video game character. Nobody said anything for a few seconds, then Ferd pressed a rum a coke into Chris' hand, slapped Hawker's shoulder, and the party resumed again.

 

* * *

 

Chris made a respectable nightwing, even more so with the fake muscle bulges the suit gave him. And that butt! It gleamed under the lighting and the curves of the muscle showed even with the black finish. The lights just curved and gleamed over each rubber-clad muscle, from the definition of his back to each of of those abdominals.

And it all belong to the gruff robotic batman.

Nightwing happily took the drink, a smile on his face. "Gotham is safe tonight!" He looked around. "Aww, What about jane and Edwards?" He sipped, heavy on the rum that drink.

Ferdinand is dressed as a perfect Bob Ross, even had paintbrushes in his shirt pocket. "On patrol. They get back in a few hours. Be careful with that drink." he teased "They might actually let you two outside."

Tsung chuckled, her glowing hair bouncing. "Pffft. Colburn has cold feet. She not happy until Chris and Hawker married."

Wen blushed hard in her alice outfit, obviously thinking about that.  
Becker rolled his eyes, looking fantastic in the minimal clothing he wore. "Alright. What are we going to give batman here?" He gestured a finely toned arm at the costumed robot.

Chris realised that he had a long way to go if he wanted a chance at taking the cocky SOB down in a fight.

"I dunno. Traditionally bat just broods while everyone else has fun." Nightwing teased, gently nudging his partner in the ribs. "But there's a halloween hockey game on and I wanna get smashed, eat terrible for me food and play dumb games during the commercials!"

Ferdinand cheered along with the rest of the crowd. Soon they all were on the couches as the men skated on the ice on TV.

"Alright, how about never have I ever?" THe hispanic pilot seemed to have natural command of a party. "Rules are simple. THe speaker admits to something they've never done. Anyone who has, has to take a drink!" He gave batman a playful scowl. "No fair things like breathing, for those of you so constructed."

"Never had I ever.. been a Yankees fan." Everyone in the know looked at Nightwing. Who firmly did not drink. A few others in the room did, including Becker. "HAW! See, I told you that jurno just lied for clickbait."

He tapped Tsung on the spikey shoulder of her fantastic costume. "I have never eaten ramen." Gasps around the room, and almost everyone had to take a hit.

No one expected Batman to take a drink.

Between the excellent game and the commercial breaks, it took a long time to get to Celn. He'd been thinking for a while, trying to find something from his past that wouldn't be a buzzkill. He's also had to take a drink on every pull, including Wen's never have I ever piloted the HLX-9. Pffft. Unfair.

"C'mon Celn, there must be something you haven't done!" laughed Ferdinand, topping off Chris's drink.

"Umm.. uh.. urp. OH! Never have I ever left Illinois."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. Haven't ever set foot out of the state."

Right now, he was hoping things would break up and he could get Hawker in his bedroom!

 

* * *

 

Hawker was listening to the game, laughing, but his eyes were equally occupied by the game, his glistening little Nightwing, and, surprisingly enough, Becker's fuzzy, sculpted chest. Hm. The mech wanted to know what it would take to get him to cry uncle, tears and all. Strain those muscles beyond comfort.

_"I dunno. Traditionally bat just broods while everyone else has fun."_

"I had fun once," Hawker chuckled. "Wan't worth it."

\---

The game was GREAT. Hawker hadn't gotten into a game this much in... months. He could almost hear Lee shouting at the TV, clapping, cursing. When the Kings' left wing checked the Blackhawks' leaner defenseman against the boards and a fight broke out, Hawker remembered just why he'd liked hockey so much. Great fight, great game - it even went into a killer overtime.

Later, the mech actually had the opportunity to contribute to the drinking game, even though he didn't have a drink. Everyone looked to him. "Never have I ever... learned to swim."

Wen and Becker drank their shots sheepishly as the rest of everyone roared with laughter.

"No fuckin' way!" said one of the other analoggers.

Becker snapped, slurring and laughing. "Hey! Yer lookin' at a born-n-bred city-slicker, delta boy! And you couldn't get me to touch the water around here if you gave me my own HLX -"

Hawker cocked his head, laughing too. "Your own HLX-9, huh? Aw, c'mon, shitbird, I thought you wanted me more than that."

El Beckador jumped up, sloppily finishing his drink and pointed with that thick arm. "Hey! Y'wanna say that to my face,  **butter bar**? Got too big for yer big boy britches. D'like to see y'push us pilots around now!"

The mech stood up from the couch, clearly still taller and heavier than the beefy A-class pilot. "You sure about that?"

 

* * *

 

Chris felt warm and fuzzy inside. Wen is sitting on his right, and he had his arm around her. Over the course of the night she'd been looking at the Bat and acting even shier then normal.

His pickled mind went to an earlier conversation, during a shift change.

"Wen, so, couldn't help noting how you've been checking out the caped crusader."

"What? No, just never seen a robot in costume before and--"

"Weeeeeeen.." Chris accused with a drunken grin. She knew he is on his 6th and was still standing. And that isn't counting all the shots he had to down. Apparently if it was illicit, Chris had done it. "Look, I'm sure we can work somethin' about when he's back on duty."

"But I'm analogue--"

Chris wiggled his fingers. "Can work someshin out. I gotz ideas too yaknow. I'm not th' idiot people think ah am."

Wen laughed, pushing him back to the couches. "You're drunk."

"Yesh!"

And how everything felt good. He is happy, Hawker is playing along, and.. oh for fuck's sake Becker! Pounding back his 10th drink of the night, he swung his feet down to the ground. Woah.. he felt dizzy!

"Oh god Chris, don't get involved.." muttered Wen, who'd been perfectly happy to have a cute stud without an ego to ogle. Or maybe it was her series of hard ciders.

"Not.. invulder per schaaay.." He meandered toward his room as the two stood and faced off like a marvel VS capcom game.

El Beckador flexed his impressive guns, then flipped the cape over his shoulder. Annoying, he looked good doing it. "Gonna take you down Batsy! Snap those ears off and make ya wear 'em as a moustache!" Stepping up to the perfectly sober machine, he roared like the luchador he is dressed as; getting the crowd to laugh and cheer. "Ya been runnin from me too long, 'big dog'! I'm gonna wrassle ya down, make ya mine! Time to put ya in your place!"

The cocky idiot might just be hammered enough to try and go toe to toe with an android.

A heavily inebriated Nightwing stumbled past a scowling Bob Ross, a familiar collar in hand. Behind El Beckador by a bit, he wiggled it at Bat-Hawker with a drunken smirk, while pointing at the impressive looking Becker. Damn the guy had those broad shoulders and narrow hips.

Chris and Hawker weren't supposed to be linking up outside of monitored training. But, both of them knew there wasn't a restriction for them getting with anyone else. "'Hos 'bout yas git thish over wif; wifoot gittin' tha' purdy body coovered in blood?" Offered the sauced pilot.

 

* * *

 

Hawker hadn't noticed the covert conversation with Wen, which was probably for the best right now, though he did take a passing notice of Chris's arm around the small, lean analogger.

El Beckador made with the gun show, as if that meant anything to the 400-lb machine! Aside from being an enticing sight, that is. Being a ham and a dork and a drunk just about ruined it, though.

_"Ya been runnin from me too long, 'big dog'! I'm gonna wrassle ya down, make ya mine! Time to put ya in your place!"_

"My place,  _lieutenant_?" Hawker barked his own laugh, dropping his arms to rest on his hips. He laughed some more when Becker threw up his fists a la Mohammed Ali. He was too drunk to even settle on a fighting style! "I know where  _your_  place is, at least. Square under my big, filthy..."

But his attention was suddenly drawn to Chris, who was heading for one of the rooms, listing like a ship in rough seas. How many drinks did he have, again? Didn't matter. There was a certain special  _collar_ in his hand.

_"'Hos 'bout yas git thish over wif; wifoot gittin' tha' purdy body coovered in blood?"_

The collar was meant for Becker, but he was reminded of something else... and the drunken luchador was promptly put on a later to-do list. He'd have all the time in the world to fuck with the cocky sunnabitch.

"If you'll excuse me, shitbird, I've got somebody to cover in a  _different_  sort of bodily fluid," he chuckled, brushing past Becker, their shoulders colliding. Hawker knew that nobody would remember the comment come morning, even given the looks he was getting. Then somebody burst out laughing - one of those wet, drunken, belly laughs - and everyone else fell in line.

Somewhere, Hawker was smiling and licking his lips as he pushed Chris into his suite and closed the door behind them.

"Hope you don't mind if this is all about you tonight, kiddo. I'll make sure you give me mine later. With compound interest."

 

* * *

 

 

 

Becker looked offended for a moment, as if he do the unthinkable and attack The Batman! Then he caught the way one of the analogue girls is checking out his arms. Oooh. He'd been trying to score with her for weeks! Strutting over, he put one of his wrestling boots up next to her with his red bulge -right- there. "El Beckador always has time for his fans.."

\---

"Why, batman, what are you doing in mah room?"

Chris, in that nightwing costume, could barely stand. God this that outfit look good on him, making him look like an extension of the great machine. He looked confused for a moment, as if he didn't quite understand what batman had said. Then comprehension dawned on his face! "Oh geeze Batman! An' here I thought you'd wanna plug into Becker. Guess he's stuck plan' second fiddle again."

He offered the collar to the robot, resting in in the fingers of his partner. "I want yous ter put this on meh. Ah am yers. We bofh knows it. When we is togetfer, I forget how ta be sad."

He put both hands on the mech's shoulders and hung on. "Rooms's spinnin' again." Deep breaths, resting his head on that metallic chest as he swallowed. "I wish ya had a dick. I want it in me right nows so bad.. fuck boss. I needs yas. Just like, all the fuckin time.."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris held out the collar, and the mech took it like it'd always been his to give.

_"Oh geeze Batman! An' here I thought you'd wanna plug into Becker. Guess he's stuck plan' second fiddle again."_

"Can't always be first chair," he rumbled, silicone-coated fingers sliding along the edge of the sleek metal band. "But that's fine - you play an excellent counterpoint to my  _melodic line_."

_"I want yous ter put this on meh. Ah am yers. We bofh knows it. When we is togetfer, I forget how ta be sad."_

Chris held on for dear life, the adorable lush. "You forget how ta be sad?" he echoed, bemused. He drew near and pressed where his mouth would be to the kid's neck. "C'mon, now. Don't get sappy on me, scabber."

_"I wish ya had a dick. I want it in me right nows so bad.. fuck boss. I needs yas. Just like, all the fuckin time.."_

He snapped the collar on, lining up the interface with Chris' implant and feeling the faint click of their contact points meeting. He was suddenly flooded with the sensation of color. Warm, fuzzy color.

"I'll let you in on a little secret." His fingers grabbed the edge of the collar and gave a rough jerk toward him, forcing Chris into a stumble against his solid chest. "I don't need a dick to made you beg for it."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris moaned his partner's name as he's collared, huffing with arousal as the robot initiates the link.

The collar transmits many things, including the health of the pilot and a number of functions about his body. PErhaps the one now that is amusing is the Blood Alcohol Level, sitting at .32! Technically, Chris should be given an IV, we ovserved so he doesn't choke and placed on medical watch.

Two of three isn't bad. How he's still operating is impressive, someone has a -tolerance.-

The rubber clad boy fell onto the broad chest of his captain, his gloved hands stroking along the strong back of that android. "N-no ya shure don't boss. I missed this scho much!"

Happy warm colors. Deep sensations of lust. And perhaps the best is the continuous flow of Trust for his metallic partner. The pilot did not fear, he did not worry about that he might be hurt.

The only person who seemed to remember that the AI's word meant something.

"Jus' imagine it boss. YOu in mah room every day." <Fucking me.> Came the drunken, exceptionally liner thoughts of the hammered pilot.

"YOu could keep th' charger up here." <So you can keep fucking me!>

"Yah need a mouth tho." <So you can suck and bite me.>

"And a.. ah big one. With fat nuts too." <Wanna get blasted, yeah!>

He planted a sloppy kiss under tha batman cowl, where a moth would be. THe human hung onto the robot, behind jerked along happily by the collar.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It occurred to him that he might get something out of this after all - maybe piggyback on Chris' dick or something. Neurospace was, all things considered, a strange place where strange things happened.

Strange, deranged, thrilling, and wonderful things.

Pleasure flooded into his silicon veins, and he  _mmmm_ 'd deep in that clever little subwoofer of his.

_"And a.. ah big one. With fat nuts too." <Wanna get blasted, yeah!>_

The collar still hadn't been modified to produce proper two-way communication, so Hawker had to speak. Not that he minded. His fingers wove through the kid's longer hair, and he found satisfactory how easy it was all to grab. "Fat enough to choke on," he continued quietly, grinding his hips into Chris's. The rubber squeaked faintly against the smooth metal of his codpiece. That bulge in the groin, hard as it was, still gave the right of right-of-way to Hawker's unforgiving metal. "As I straddle your face and slap my thick cock on your forehead?"

His grip on the collar was complete. Chris wasn't going to move an inch unless the mech wanted him to, and right now, he slowly, firmly, guided him down to his knees, pressing his cheek against that aluminum swell. "Put your mouth on it, little boy," he commanded with a growl. "Lick it like you've got a horse in this race."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris's sweet face is full of drunken lust. He wanted to relinquish control, to place himself in the comforting embrace of his partner. The curly locks of hair are dense, and sliding fingers through them is a satisfying endeavor. His eyes widened as the smooth codpiece squished his rubber one, and he groaned at the low ache.

Even hampered like this, his boss's non-existent dick is still superior.

_"As I straddle your face and slap my thick cock on your forehead?"_

"I'll motorboat them boss. Lick and kiss and worship! I know all that awesome cum is from them. Wanna watch 'em slide through your legs as you walk."

Down and down he went, kissing a line of kisses down the chest of Hawker's robotic shell. Then he is facing it, the powerful codpiece that held no secrets. The grip on the collar and in his hair left no room to maneuver. He would obey the powerful voice that owned him.

A hand went down to touch his own dick.

Lips parted. No shame as he looked up, making sure his boss knew what his toy is downing. Guided, his tongue traced from the taint to the very top of that codpiece.

He stroked his own shaft in the same motion. The sensation, the rising lust flowed flowed across the connection. No inhibitions from the drunken pilot.

Lick, stroke. Suck, press. Lick, Stroke. He will please, he will serve, he gives his pleasure literally to his master.

<Wanna feel your huge floppy hosscock on my face, feel it get HARD before you take me!>

  

 

 

* * *

 

 

_I think I like you drunk,_  the mech thought to himself. The sloppy kisses down his chest, his hard, shapely belly. He felt Chris practically dripping with lust,  _oozing_  with it. He felt the pulse throbbing in his fleshcock, and it was  _almost_  as good as having one himself.

_"Wanna watch 'em slide through your legs as you walk."_

"Mmyou're selling me on the idea now, kiddo," he said with a deep chuckle. "I can see how badly you need it." Hawker tightened his grip on his pilot, and he pressed Chris to his cod. Almost hard enough to bruise his pretty, masked face.  _Almost_. "Yeah, let's see that mouth of yours stretched wide open around me. I wanna feel you  _gag_." He pulled away. The edge of the codpiece left a red mark, but it would fade in a few minutes. It would have to do!

Chris's hand wandered down to his prick, and he jerked in time with his desperate servicing of his captain's crotch. The jolts of pleasure flooded their link and Hawker grunted at the phantom sensation.

_< Wanna feel your huge floppy hosscock on my face, feel it get HARD before you take me!>_

He smirked in his CPUs. Yeah, they could have fun with this.

"You'll come when I'm ready to come, got it, meatboy?" A thrust into Chris's face, and he looked down into those amber eyes with his hard golden ones, hoping that his staid pleasure at the kid's efforts would convey.

 

 

* * *

 

Chris put his gloved hands on the mech's knees. With firm squeezes he worked them up his partner's legs, until they were at the upper thigh. Around, around until he is groping at the places where the robotic glutes and leg meet. Rough, aggressive groping, feeling and inspecting the solid construction.

<Need a bigger body for you, even at this size. I want you looming!>

The FORCE returns! Not as rough as before, his pretty face isn't bruised, nor are there heavy marks of abuse on his body. But there is the welcome feeling of flesh submitting to metal, impossible hardness against his skin. He gasps and shudders in joy.

_"You'll come when I'm ready to come, got it, meatboy?"_

<FUCK YES!>

"Yes Sir!" came his enthusiastic response, and he got to licking. Kissing, sucking over the place where his boss would have a dick and nuts. Guided by those powerful mechanical hands, looking up so the yellow-eyed android knew he is happy to submit and could see every moment of accepting his place on his knees.

He already felt the pent up need pulsing along his shaft, stroking in smooth pulls from base to tip, then rapid jerks from tip to base. Under the rubber of his costume, simulating the oral he's giving. THe whole time he's focused on his own pleasure, desperate to push it all across the connection for his dominant.

 

 

* * *

 

_"Yes Sir!"_

"You look good on your knees, officer," he rumbled, pleasure building somewhere. A laugh. "Look at you. A sharp, young man of the law, grovelling at my feet. Willingly submitting to such treatment." Fingers cupped Chris' jaw. "Whoever ruined you, I'd love to thank them." Potentially dangerous words for somebody with such a nebulous past, but that was the whole point of this, right? To push that envelope and back away  _just_  as the hurt became real.

And if it didn't, you pushed until it did.

Chris' hand and mouth and cock felt amazing, even across the link. Their bond was strong, otherwise this would be impossible.  _How perfect._

He didn't want to raise too many suspicions, though. They needed to keep this fast and rough.

"You'd do anything I told you to, wouldn't you? You'd obey my every word. Mm, do me proud, kiddo.  _Come for me. **Now, scab!**_ " One last time he pressed Chris' smooth, red face to his crotch, which glistened with his spit. Teeth edges grazed uncomfortably along that smooth aluminum and he was ready to feel his pilot's desperate gasps and shudders and feel them almost as his own.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris's dick THROBBED as those perverse words fell onto his ears. He hungrily licked at the codpiece, teeth clattering and scraping along metal as he tried to devour the cock he could almost feel filling his mouth.

His cock. Their shared cock. He stroked and squeezed it through the rubber of his suit, the gloves making it so he couldn't even really feel it was his own hand doing the work.

_"You'd do anything I told you to, wouldn't you?"_

Hawker's cock, now.

_"Come for me. **Now, scab!** "_

Spit bubbled around his lips, red marks on his cheeks as the robotic hips ground against his face. The hand behind his head, fingers interlocked in his hair, ensuring he stayed on his knees in service.

Five strong spurts flowed from that rubber-clad shaft. It bounced and drooled cocksnot, pouting the stuff into the heavy rubber codpiece. The sensation flowed up Chris's spine, and every possible byte of sensation is duplicated across the interface link. Giving his pleasure up, actively working to ensure as much went up to the machine in control. Every throb, every glorious moment of that endorphin rush, down to the tingle as his balls emptied themselves.

Just so Hawker could get off.

Then he just felt warm and secure. Safely controlled. On his knees before a robot in a batman costume, while wearing a nightwing costume.

Kissing at the bulge, he whispered "THank you sir. Thank you for showing me where I belong." Then he closed his eyes, resting there as his hands dropped down and held just behind his Boss's knees.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The mech felt, without a shadow of a doubt between them, that Chris  _knew_  his body belonged to the machine right now -  _literally_. Every square inch of him, every inch of that cock straining so deliciously under that rubber. It was his just enough to get the job done. The rest - the complete submission, the desperation - was Chris'. If they had a proper two-way link going, Hawker would have been a wall, or a storm surge. For one moment, completely unconcerned with the mind of his boy as he was overcome with his own machine pleasure.

Hawker felt the human's body tighten, coil, and burst into flames as orgasm plowed through him like virgin snow. The AI felt it almost as intensely: the sensitive flesh, the sinews, the pulsing blood. That hot little shaft shook and unloaded inside the suit; Hawker could feel that familiar  _rushing_  sensation, that hot, sticky-sweet explosion as wave after wave of clenching muscles forced out that salty, tangy spunk.

The machine's air cycling rose to a higher pitch as the fans worked overtime to cool down from physical exertion that he hadn't actually performed. Sensors tingled, re-calibrated from the sudden oversensitivity. The dripping of saliva from his thoroughly serviced codpiece was the icing on the goddamn cake.

He rumbled, hummed a long, lazy groan. Fingers through the kid's hair as he came down from his high, panting and trembling against the mech's solid legs. Rough touch softened to something more like slow, rhythmic massaging. Petting. His pilot was precious. One of a kind. Hawker realized, then, that if anyone so much as plucked a hair from his auburn head without asking, he'd shove their spine down their throat.

Chris was completely, utterly  _his_. No questions asked.

_"Thank you for showing me where I belong."_

"Good little humans like you deserve nothing less," he said quietly. There was genuine warmth there. He let Chris relax for a moment and gather himself before he reached for that collar and gave a gentle upward tug. "Now c'mon kiddo, before they send a search party."

 

 

* * *

 

Chris huffed heavily, kissing at those thighs as he is stroked. The high of cumming, providing for Hawker what the mech didn't have, that is what a good pilot does. This was barely different than working inside of the Vanguard chassis. It felt very peaceful here, the way the metallic digits worked through his hair. Safe and secure.

_"Good little humans like you deserve nothing less."_

Chris slumped down heavily, dropping his butt onto his heels. Even with the limitations of the link and this less-than-ideal frame; he  _felt_  the acceptance coming across. The DF2 is committed to making him it's pilot now. It's happy, battered, and sexually exhausted pilot.

Then he came up, where he could press his face to the smooth robotic chest, throw his arms around that solid frame and hug. Hug and hug and hug. He could squeeze as hard as he could in thanks.

He belonged somewhere, to someone.

_"Now c'mon kiddo, before they send a search party."_

Reluctantly, he let go. Using the box of tissues, he opened the fly of the suit and wiped off his mess as best as he could. Ziiip. Tossing the mess aside, he felt a weird drunken high passing through him. "Yesh. Thatsh ah good idear." The slurring was cute, but he needed to start hydrating now. That BAC is simply too high, he might ruin what's left of that precious brain.

Not five minutes later Nightwing and Batman emerged. Nightwing still wore the collar of course, not that anyone paid it much mind. Many good snacks and bottles of water later, Chris found himself with his costume mask off as the party wound down around 1 am. Tsung and Jane were going at Halo HARD. Becker had disappeared with two of the analogue girls, and Wen had called it a night a while back. The happy mood of the party had fallen into a lazy glut that would have the pilots doing some serious housekeeping the next few days.

"I need to crash.." muttered Celn. He turned and looked at bat-hawker, a silly smile on his face. <Wish you could stay. Wish I was IN you.>

 

* * *

 

The hug caught him off-guard. It really did, and that pissed him off. But the frustration quickly gave way to something resembling care, or maybe adoration, or perhaps endearment - because something about the damn kid made him feel... what? Normal?

He could feel the squeeze, the happy strain of those muscles around him, but the metal body didn't yield one bit. And it was fine. It was better than fine; it was great. He... hugged back. Possessive. Encircling. Hawker imagined for a moment that his arms were the hatches of his cockpit and that Chris was inside of him again. Which is  _truly_  where a mech's pilot belonged.

\---

Hawker had shoved a number of water bottles at Chris over the next hour. The kid wasn't going to be any use to him hungover, though he'd be more than happy to punish that lack of forethought if he needed to. Like, say, handing him by the ankles until he puked and begged for a soft bed in a dark room.

The cowl had come off pretty quickly, but Nightwing was still in full costume by the time the clock chimed 1.

_"I need to crash..." <Wish you could stay. Wish I was IN you.>_

"Yes you do," Hawker answered strategically, before sliding his big metal hands under Chris' perfect ass to hoist him up into a bridal carry. Someone cat-called and clapped at the sight, and the mech just rolled his optics. "Now c'mon..." Off to the bedroom he went, though not for anything especially sexy this time.


	17. The 30-Hour Invasion: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Shit Hits the Fan.

It was late November 21st when all hell broke loose. All of 42's pilots scrambled down into the motor pool as emergency lights flashed. Hawker had been sitting on the edge of his maintenence slab, datapad in hand as he looked over another fiddly bit of software from Wen, when the station came alive. Kole, in full kevlar, was behind the sortie group, shouting and pointing as each person fell in line, doing exactly as they were trained to do. It was quite a sight, and not for the first time Hawker was proud to be here.  
  
"We've got ourselves a situation, Big Nine," the sergeant said, sprinting over to the small frame and catching his breath.   
  
Hawker stood quickly. "Sir?"  
  
"Yeah, that's right, you heard me. Big Nine. Gonna need him today. And that scruffy pilot of his too."  
  
There was a smile in his CPUs. "Really, sir?"  
  
"You bet. Celn'll fill you in on the details as soon as you link up; the mission file should download. We had about five minutes to figure this all out, but there's no more time. We gotta get the hell out there."  
  
Hawker's optics glanced over Kole's shoulder as Chris came jogging out of the elevator. Their eyes met, and even without the collar on their thoughts were obvious to the other.  _This is it. Go time._

 

* * *

 

 

A month of training had upped Chris's endurance immensely. The jog down to where the Vanguard Chassis stood barely had him breathing hard. "Get your little frame in it's charging dock Boss!" He gestured to the phone-booth sized cubby that had become 'home' for Hawker.  
  
A grim face Colburn pulled up on a modified golf cart that carried enough tools to build a car from a black of steel. "I'm putting you back in your chassis, Captain." THe locked computer consoles that made the transfer possible opened at her biometrics. She typed in long passwords and began the process.  
  
\---  
  
30 minutes ago, it had begun. 25 minutes ago, she and Kole had been talking as he geared up along with the rest of the precinct.  
  
"Sir, will all respect, Celn is not ready!" She stripped out of her jumpsuit, pulling on her kevlar jumpsuit. Damn thing weighed far too much and was stiff as a board.  
  
"I don't care. Not with THIS happening Sarah." Kole grunted, ten thousand things on his mind.  
  
"They've had only a month of formal training! The army wouldn't put a pilot and mech anywhere but the range with that little time!"  
  
Kole looked over his shoulder. "Sarah--"  
  
"I don't trust him!"  
  
"Chief Engineer Colburn, I ORDER you to reinstate Captain Hawker to full functionality. Put his pilot in him and get every damned weapon they can carry out into the streets!"  
  
"I.. Yes. Yes, Sir." she didn't like it. But now, she didn't have too.  
  
Kole hated to pull rank, but like Hawker; that's why it is there. "Good."  
  
\---  
  
After Hawker was reborn back into his proper 15 foot frame, Colbrun took her hands off the controls and sighed. "Full loadout Captain. Everything you can carry." She gave a sorryful look at Celn.  
  
She might as well have tossed the kid into a woodchipper.

  
But it wasn't her call. And She could give Kole hell for it later.  
  
\---  
  
Chris got a palm-ride up into the cockpit. Home. He'd wanted to kiss the big bot for luck, but.. well.. neurospace would have to do. The restraints in the chair flexed, eager to press their steel against his perfectly fitted pilot suit. He dropped into place, heels on the footpads as he keyed in the sequence. Eyes closed, he felt Hawker wrap around him as the chestplate armor seated shut. The heavy grip around his skull returned, and the interface plated mated in perfect orientation. The mask swung dowg, sealing to his face and filling his lungs with air processed through Hawker's filtration system.   
  
A press of a button and they were one.  
  
In neurospace, Chris TACKLED his Boss! He hugged against the hand of the mech as it held tightly to him, with a grip that promised never to release. They both wanted more, so much more, but this would have to do. Gently Chris dissolved the false location, leaving them as a unified pair. He explained as Hawker went to gear up, trusting the mech's judgement implicitly.  
  
"So it began last night, but it showed it's head this morning. We have every gang you can think of on an all out war. THey're armed, high, and moving up from their hide-holes towards the financial and industrial districts. The docks are swarming with Russian mechs. Thousands of the damn things are walking out of the harbor. Some of them look like they've been underwater for years, most are the size of a T5, and are unmanned. But there's been some sightings of bigger stuff. HLX-6 or so size."  
  
Chris's memory and the local news supplied images.  
  
"That's where Kole wants us. You and I, plus some tanks, drones and MRAVs will be best mopping that mess up. Thankfully the mechs are only armed with automatic rifles, so far."   
  
He sighed and switched to the richest part of Chicago, which looked to be in full riot.  
  
"Then there's this damned mess. Good US implants cost money. You gotta be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life. Not a problem for Costa, those come with his pension. But when you want to keep modding your body up the wazoo for fashion? Lots of people turned to the cheaper chinese stuff."  
  
The videos showed bankers, accountants, baristas and hipsters in the streets. SOme looked horrified, fighting against their metallic parts. Others were in a full fury, their bodies long enchanced past the point there their organic bits had a say. "We aren't sure how, but it's like every bit of foreign stuff has decided that it's a great time to turn on everything around them. And it's not just humans. AIs have been using cheap chinese parts for years. THey're reporting that their bodies are shutting down or going berserk. So the Industrial district.. we might had to take out some factories if those corrupted bastards start trying to produce something."  
  
Chris paused, having recited the briefing that he'd gotten 10 minutes ago. "City's gone to hell, it's not our fault and now we gotta deal with it. You, me, every cop and the nation guard has been called. I think they might legit mobilize the army. But that'll take time. We have to hold the line, take out what we can, and keep as many normal folks safe."

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Chris looked perfect in that suit. It'd finally learned all his curves and angles and fit him like a shiny, oiled glove. Every burgeoning muscle captured the harsh light of the motor pool, glistening on him like flowing water. He was bulking up admirably.

_"Get your little frame in it's charging dock Boss!"_

Hawker grinned even though he didn't have a mouth. "This is the  _only_  time I'm gonna take an order from my subordinate," he said with a laugh, standing tall. "Don't need to tell me twice, kiddo." He slapped Chris' shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Colburn appeared, the tires of her NEV squealing on the polished concrete as she braked to a halt and leapt out toward the towering black frame gathering dust as it loomed above them all. 

"I'm putting you back in your chassis, Captain."

Hawker smacked a fist into an open palm. "I've been waiting to hear that for  _weeks_.”

She gave him a hard look. “I swear to god, Hawker, if you -”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I  _know_  my duties. Protect THIS city,” he said, loud and firm, and pointed downward, “And protect THIS pilot.” His hands reached for Chris, grabbing his and taking it between his strong fingers. “Everything else is surplus to requirements.”

Colburn inhaled, letting it out slow. Then she nodded and grabbed a datapad.

“Alright, then. Let’s do this thing.”

\---

It was 3 minutes later and Hawker rushed back into his old self like a satellite falling from orbit. This body burned so much  _hotter_  than the tiny one. The HEAT. The gale-force winds he could push out his back vents, whipping around him and rustling everything nearby.

The  _power_.

[CORE TEMPERATURE: 265C (CLIMBING)]  
[COOLANT TEMPERATURE: 195C (CLIMBING)]  
[SENSOR ARRAYS: PRIMARY: GREEN. SECONDARY: GREEN. TERTIARY: GREEN.]  
[HAPTIC NET: GREEN.]  
[POWER DRAW: IDLE (287.2 MWH)]

[ALL SYSTEMS: GREEN.]

It felt good to be Big Nine again.

Klaxons.

_Boom. Boom._

“Ready when you are, greenhorn.”

\---

Chris leapt up into Hawker’s hand the instant he knelt and popped the hatches. It’d been a long time - too long - but it felt, for the both of them, like riding a bicycle. Muscle memory.

His cockpit anatomy keened at the slight weight of Chris’ body in the chair again. His feet on the pads, his hands at the controls. With that interior hand he cradled his little pilot’s skull, as delicate as a cherry cordial, and held fast as he engaged their link-up system. They fit together perfectly. Static. Color. Warmth.

Chris appeared in his hand, then. The small, precious thing that he’d been to the mech since their first time in the office. Loyal; whip-smart; quick; and too goddamn attractive for his own good.

Neurospace fingers curled around that body in a kind of embrace as the connection flooded with Chris’ ecstatic joy, and Hawker’s unflappable, though still intensely smoldering attachment and desire. He wanted to swallow him again; pin him to the wall with his 3-foot shaft; hold him and maybe just never let go. But now wasn’t the time.

Now was the time to go be the necessary evil again.

_Together_ , this time.

\---

The debriefing went as well as it could have, given that MRAVs were already being carried up to street level by the huge freight lifts, the T-series mechs were being prepped and readied to jump in as soon as the shooting stopped, and that Hawker had sped over to his personal armory to equip his loadout.

News footage filled their shared mental space as he reached for his guns. One pistol was anchored to the side of each thigh, slipped into specially-designed holds that allowed for minimum disruption of armor cover. A mount revealed on his shoulder as plates unlatched themselves and slid away, which is where he stowed the heavy rifle. Extra rounds attached to his back in oversized clips, and the 50-cal ammo in his arm was replenished to the hilt. 

Last, but not least, he donned an accessory: a titanium-lamed holster that wound around his belly and held his equivalent to a trench knife below the main bulk of his backside: a 30” inch monstrosity of inconel alloy, its lethally-toothed edge coated in a layer of tungsten that had a dull, eerie sheen. 

_"That's where Kole wants us. You and I, plus some tanks, drones and MRAVs will be best mopping that mess up. Thankfully the mechs are only armed with automatic rifles, so far."_

“Just where I like to be,” the mech rumbled deeply, excitement beginning to just barely creep into his voice. This is what he LIVED for. “No man’s land.” He headed for the elevator, making room for two more MRAVs.

_"City's gone to hell, it's not our fault and now we gotta deal with it. You, me, every cop and the nation guard has been called. I think they might legit mobilize the army. But that'll take time. We have to hold the line, take out what we can, and keep as many normal folks safe."_

<We do what we can, kiddo. If that means holding, then we hold as long as we need to. I hope you’re prepared for that.>

The second MRAV came roaring into the lift, all eight tires growling as they rolled across the diamond plate. It was #301: Becker and his team’s.

“You ready, kids?” came his familiar voice across the radio. “I hope for your sake that you don’t wet yourself in there, Celn!” 

 

* * *

 

 

 

<I missed you being Big, Boss.> Chris lamented, familiarizing himself with the weaponry as more and more got added to the great machine. The humorous thing about Big Nine is that there rarely was call for this kind of actual force. Usually Hawker is a roadblock, a towering wall that the law-breakers take a look at and choose not to cross.

Now though. Now they got to fulfil the original intent of the Vanguard.

Destruction!

_“You ready, kids?” came his familiar voice across the radio. “I hope for your sake that you don’t wet yourself in there, Celn!”_

Chris's throbbing arousal was the only thing wet in the cockpit. He keyed the radio to transmit. "Try not to get underfoot, MRAVs tend to scuff the HLX's boots."

The lift opened up to a heavy concrete arch at ground level. The two MRAVs went first, the mech let go od the overhead support and easily stroke up the same roadway. Outside 42, the surrounding city blocks had been levelled into paved parking lots. Around those were businesses that thrived on the security of the nearby station. In those normally empty lots were already hundred of civilians seeking safety. Police were erecting emergency tents for shelter against the cold November air. Officers guided those arriving by car to fill one of the far off lots.

At the sight of Big Nine stomping down the street, at a mere 15 mph a slow hush fell across the crowd. Cell phones came out. 

<C'mon. Do it. Please?>

The hand closest to the crowd came up, turning into a fist, then the thumb raised. Then the head turned, and the massive robotic face winked with the barest hint of a smile before the armored faceplates closed up.

A cheer went up, then applause. People screamed. "Big Nine Big Nine Big Nine!" Then the 15 foot colossus tromped around a corner and began to pick up speed. Footfalls firm and increasing.

Following the MRAVs, an overhead drone chirped into the group. "Tsung here. You shouldn't see any of those mechs until you get to somewhere between Wolf Lake park and the Lake George canal. THey're Amphibious and shooting any humans they come across."

Becker keyed up. "Say again, they are shooting on civilians?"

"It's an army Becker. THey're killing everyone they come across. Extremely hostile."

"Did you see anything beyond antipersonnel weaponry? And are they in the streets or are they occupying buildings?" Chris inquired.

Tsung is safely in 42, resting on a couch as she flew a drone over their heads. "Negative and Negative. Walking up the streets like they marching in parade, clearing the city. Driving people away. Stupid robots."

<We might not need to even waste ammo Boss. Technically, not even the kinetic energy of those rounds should even hurt you.> Chris had visions of godzilla in his head. He busily observed the 14 data feeds that swarmed into his mind and left the walking and aiming up to the big bot. <Well.. maybe a few thousand at the same time might.>

"You starting running into them by the next block. I go check to see how far they spread." Tsung keyed on the radio, then he drone slid across the sky and out of line of sight.

Even with the MRAVs in the lead, Chris and HAwker had a commanding view of the street ahead. Already the first line of robots had taken a knee and aimed their AK-47s at the approaching armored vehicles. The rounds, well aimed, began bouncing off the HLX's armor like hail on a roof. There were 32 in this group, they stood the height of a T5, the markings of old RUssia on their armor. To Chris they looked like toy soldiers and just as breakable. Many bore rust and marks of long term corrosion for their time under water.

"It's go time." Chris whispered. Real combat, no simulation. 

 

* * *

 

 

_"Try not to get underfoot, MRAVs tend to scuff the HLX's boots."_  
  
Hawker grinned at the friendly antagonism. Mostly, he was enjoying Chris' excitement. Enjoying in a  _sense_  - part of him was fighting his own building arousal, but he other part of him was dead serious. There was no forgetting that the last time this happened, he lost the most important human in his life. No letting that  _slide_.  
  
"Eyes on the prize, meatjocks," he said across the radio frequency. "As soon as we're topside, cut the chatter."  <You'll have plenty of time to grind his gears after this is over, kiddo.>  
  
\---  
  
The icy air was noted, but ignored. [OPERATING TEMPERATURE REACHED. CORE HOLDING AT 315C +/- 2C.] Chris would have been able to feel it like it were his own skin. The weak crunch of old snow under his massive footfalls, streaking it black. Becker's #301 and the #313 went on ahead up the block, past the harried checkpoint of patrol mechs. Those guys were usually pretty tough - regularly shot at with human peashooters, but this was altogether different.  
  
Hawker's powerful legs carried him and his pilot out the archway and into the dim wintery light. It did little to define his matte features, but that made him all the more impressive to look at. The new strips of red almost seemed to glow in the sea of gray. Hawker didn't need sensors to know that there'd be evacuees here; this was probably one of the safest places to be right now, unless you had a personal bomb shelter. He slowed to a brisk walk -  _vh-CROM vh-CROM vh-CROM_  - out of courtesy for the gathering crowd of frightened, fragile humans.  
  
Apparently, not frightened enough to keep them all from snapping photos, though.  
  
_< C'mon. Do it. Please?>_  
  
A snort. <You're gonna be the end of me, kid.> Hawker gave his best heroic stride as he flashed a thumbs-up at the crowd, gave a handsome wink, and engaged his battle mask. Cheers erupted as he caught up with the MRAVs; applause; he thought he heard a woman try and scream her love at him.  _Whatever it takes to keep their hopes up I guess._  He turned and broke into a jog that threatened to pull up the pavement.  
  
_"It's an army Becker. THey're killing everyone they come across. Extremely hostile."_  
  
"No declarations, no fancy manifestos, no calls to arms. This isn't a popular movement, that's for sure. This is  _business_ ," the mech said across the radio. "Leave it to politics to ruin a perfectly good war."  
  
Becker chuckled into his mic.  
  
_"Did you see anything beyond antipersonnel weaponry? And are they in the streets or are they occupying buildings?"  
  
"Negative and Negative. Walking up the streets like they marching in parade, clearing the city. Driving people away. Stupid robots."_  
  
The streets are as deserted as a graveyard here. An eerie sight. With the slowly sticking snow, it reminded him of...  
  
_< We might not need to even waste ammo Boss. Technically, not even the kinetic energy of those rounds should even hurt you. Well.. maybe a few thousand at the same time might.>_  
  
Hawker was busy letting his pilot get used to being linked up under combat conditions; the extra-neural inputs would have been enough to drive the average person insane, but an S-class pilot could handle it just fine. The problem, though, was as old as neurospace was cutting edge: this was a matter experience versus good ol' book-learnin's. And if all Chris had was 2 minutes of acclimation before hitting the ground running, then it was better than nothing!  
  
<All you need is a hundred of those to wind up with a serious combined rate of fire. Throw anything else into the mix - an EMP, a flashbang - and you're down. Just keep your head, keep being a good co-pilot, and we'll be the scariest fuckers this city has to offer, alright?>  
  
Before long, they came across their first line. Old bots, simply and stoutly constructed, blocked the 6-lane street in a formation made up of 3 rows. Red, Hawker noticed. Bearing the pre-war emblem of a double-headed imperial eagle on the left shoulder. Their metal was pocked with rust, streaked with dull sediment. The joints on some of them still even had the remnants of water grasses wound around the bearings. They couldn't have been above the surface for longer than a few hours.  
  
Then, they started firing. To Hawker, that's just what bullets  _felt_  like - to Chris, maybe NERF ammo.   
  
_"It's go time."_  
  
"Yes it  _is_ ," the machine answered back, disengaging the clamps on his rifle. Arm reached up, swung it around. Safety remained locked. He wasn't going to use it as a firearm just yet - he was going to use it as a  **club**.  
  
The 50-cals mounted to the MRAVs came to life, swiveling on their mounts and exploding with the sharp report of automatic fire. Together, Hawker and Chris broke into a heavy, gut-wrenching sprint before kicking off into the air and leaping over Becker's #301. Pavement split open under his feet like ceramic tile under the impact of a sledgehammer, but he didn't let up for even a fraction of a second as he went to full-on plow into the line of ex-Russian robots, rifle swinging.  
  
Two of them went down immediately, taking out a few others as they flew backwards. All guns were on the Vanguard unit, now, and it was beginning to grab the attention of his damage centers. A firm kick to one, stomping another and knocking the weapon from its hands. "These things.. unh!" One of them tried grabbing his head but he whipped around in time to throw it to the ground before it could knock him off his feet. "These things are damn-near indestructible!" he bellowed over the radio. But that's how the Ruskies always did things: make them simple, make them reliable, and make them  _legion_.   
  
Off to their right, one of the MRAVs was attempting to blow a hole in the robots' line. It was slow going.  
  
_CHUKKA-CHUKKA-CHUKKA-CHUKKA_  
  
The Browning rounds were just as likely to find their target as they were to graze the flat surfaces and -  _BANG!_  <Fuck!> \- hit  _Chris and Hawker_. A little oil dribbled from the hole in Hawker's leg, but it was nothing. " **Watch it!** "  
  
"I'm trying, sir!"  
  
"Focus on your 2 o'clock!"  
  
"On it, cap!"  
  
16 down, 16 to go.  
  
_CHUKKACHUKKACHUKKACHUKKA_  
  
Boom. The fuel cell on that one took the heaviest beating. Lit up the place like the Fourth of July for a few seconds, quickly followed by a stinking plume of black smoke: burning oil.  
  
Make that 14.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris had done a number of maneuvers and training exercises with Hawker. But he had never been  _outside_  before. And he sure as fuck hadn't JUMPED with the HLX before! The sudden motion, the raise and fall in his stomach, he didn't quite believe what had happened. Hawker can long-jump like an olympic athlete, and land like a gymnast.  
  
The T-5 Sized mechs were all around him then. Hawker didn't hesitate in attacking, and with no squishy humans inside of the enemy he was free to attack the problem without the need for Chris's consent. That didn't mean the kid couldn't help. He watched as the battalion of robots got cut in half in less than a minute. <They're frontally armored boss. Hugely biased.> Mentally he indicated how the limbs featured semi-circular armor.  
  
He helped to guide their monstrous footfalls in a sweeping circle, forcing the russian androids to choose between the MRAVs and the HLX-9. They followed the closest target, the rear ones firing their weaponry while the closes ones advanced at their plodding pace as a single wall of 7 machines. Pulling back, a swift kick to the chest of the nearest sent it skidding into the firing line, dropping two of it's comrades into a heap of scrabbling limbs. A kick like Toren had taught the young pilot to do in their sparring.  
  
With the lesser armored backsides up against the browning guns, the MRAVS put proper holes in the power cells and hydraulic systems of the mechs and they turned into smoking slag. From there it was hilariously easy, just be a target and let the MRAVS jockey into position. Assuming you didn't mind being shot. The final four robots had huddled into a secure position, back to back as they fired at the advancing vanguard.  
  
Picking up one of the slagged soviet mechs, a fast discus-style throw broked up that little defensive huddle. Chris' emotions ran high as those massive boots came into range. STOMP! Three mechs. Boom, boom. Two. Chris felt the same pleasure of success flowing through himself and Hawker as they raised their foot up, leering down at the inferior machine. It struggled, trying to push itself away with it's twisted limbs.   
  
BOOOM!  
  
Fires sparked and burned, the smell of burning oil hung in the air as the brownings stopped firing.  
  
<I don't think we got hurt, beyond a little friendly fire.> Came the shocked pilot's surprise, perhaps begging to understand Hawker's justified superiority. What would have turned humans into paste didn't even phase the vanguard.  
  
Tsung's voice came in as she updated their map. "There are five more contingents of soviet mechs. Moving like this." THey all were moving toward the financial distract, along with the gangs and the hacked elite.   
  
"I don't suppose there's a central control for these russian crapcans?" came Becker's pleased question, loving the feeling of smoking the enemy.   
  
"Already went looking. came Tsung's reply "They're smart enough to have and follow orders. Colbrun says they'll look inside what's left AFTER we stop them from marching on the city."  
  
As they began to move again, jogging ahead of the MRAVs, Hawker knew which group he wanted to hit next. <Boss, we might wanna shoot. It could take us half an hour to clean up the remaining known red army like this.>

 

* * *

 

 

Chris was perhaps contributing more than he was conscious of: their combined computing power was in the ballpark of 90 petaFLOPS, and Hawker's calculating speed and awareness reacted accordingly for them both. They were a binary star system in tight orbit around each other - a perfect dancing storm of highly-trained and highly-capable consciousness.  
  
_< They're frontally armored boss. Hugely biased.>_  
  
Before Chris had gotten his own suit, their exchange of thoughts happened at only slightly super-vocal speeds. But here, with their near 100% synch rate, the exchange was almost instantaneous. A conversation still, but without the time delay: a true gestalt mind.  
  
<Be my guest, then!> Hawker indicated, guiding the human to better 'fill' the shared homonculous of his massive, deadly frame. Chris was more than receptive - he'd been looking forward to this too, and the mech felt the kid right there with him, their legs, arms, moving as one. The kick was a pleasant surprise, a move that Hawker had never done. He looked on, Chris sharing his optics as they watched the thick, blocky things struggle for balance with busted limbs oozing fluid and spraying sparks. He looked on and their neurospace, now a thin, wordless, formless, film of a liminal zone between them, turned rosy red with beaming pride. <You're gettin' the hang of these boots!>  
  
Chris and Hawker pulled their fire like a black hole pulls stardust, giving the MRAVs plenty of room to breathe. Power cells popped, some of them more spectacularly than others, and the Russian tech began dropping like flies.   
  
Kicking, stomping. Holding half down with one foot and ripping off the rest with the other, leering down as metal shrieked, cables burst, and weak arms ceased their flailing. The street ran with brown and green and transparent rivers of machine blood. Some of it danced with small blue flames, choking the gray air with black smoke. Then it was silent. For now.  
  
[CORE TEMPERATURE: 325C (HOLDING)]  
[COOLANT TEMPERATURE: 295C (HOLDING)]  
[SENSOR ARRAYS: PRIMARY: GREEN. SECONDARY: GREEN. TERTIARY: GREEN.]  
[HAPTIC NET: GREEN.]  
[POWER DRAW: ACTIVE (310.1 MWH)]  
  
[DAMAGE: 1%]  
[PATCHING: NONE.]  
[ALL SYSTEMS: GREEN.]  
  
_< I don't think we got hurt, beyond a little friendly fire.>_  
  
<It feels good, doesn't it?> The two of them surveyed the tangled, smoking remains of their violence. The craters in the asphalt from their steps, their sharp turns. Yes, it felt good. They wanted more.  
  
"There are five more contingents of soviet mechs. Moving like this."  
  
A HUD popped up for all the pilots, giving them a birds' eye view of the playing field. The financial district, huh?  
  
"I don't suppose there's a central control for these russian crapcans?"  
  
"They're smart enough to have and follow orders. Colbrun says they'll look inside what's left AFTER we stop them from marching on the city."  
  
Hawker had a hunch. "Their movements were pre-programmed," he said, kicking at one of the broken toys.  _SHRRRAK._  "I don't think there was an active operator. They had their orders, and they followed them to a tee." He looked in the direction of downtown and its towering skyscrapers, ominous against the heavy gray clouds. "What bothers me is that they were disposable," he continued. "The gangs don't throw tech away like this - they take salvage very seriously. We just obliterated $5 million dollars'-worth of robotics, and nobody seems to be tore up about it. Whoever this is, they've got more where these came from. Probably worse, too. I'd like to see their supply line disrupted, but that may be a job for the National Guard when they show up."  
  
A different sort of rumble caught their shared attention and pulling up behind the MRAVs now were the tanks: four of them to go with the four MRAVs. They were sleek, lightweight models, ideally suited for urban environments. Hawker knew their crew had to do most of their operating while flat on their bellies due to the vehicle's extremely low profile. It was not a job he envied, but those FBI SWAT boys were tough. One step away from shouting "hoorah".   
  
"Nice of you to finally show up, Mendez!" laughed Becker.  
  
"Eh, thought we'd give the coppers a head start today. All those doughnuts'll weigh you down, you know?" she laughed. Then: "Hey! Is that the HLX with its new pilot?"  
  
Hawker gave a casual salute and nodded. "Back in black," he chuckled. "Now c'mon, we've got a World War IV that needs aborting!"  
  
_< Boss, we might wanna shoot. It could take us half an hour to clean up the remaining known red army like this.>_  
  
<Point. But I'm saving the rifle for now. Only brought 24 rounds with me.> He 'holstered' his massive weapon, reached for the 50-caliber pistols. Hawker was ambidextrous, just one of those inherent qualities of machine-hood that came with not having brain hemispheres. These were better quality than the ones he had in the shooting range back home, though: they were designed to automatically feed from his arms when held in position so that he didn't have to manually attach the belt. [LOADING...... COMPLETE.]  
  
"What's the cavalry packing this evening?" he asked across the radio as the group took off down the street.  
  
"Corrosives, concussives, flashbangs, flypaper, anti-air if it comes to that... you name it, we got it," Mendez replied. Rarely did these tanks bring real heat into cities like this, but their versatility in armaments, and their ability to switch payload at the drop of a hat was unmatched. They could also take a pounding just as good as the 8-wheeled MRAVs, but could deflect twice as much lead.  
  
"I'll be calling in a few favors before this is over, I wager."  
  
"That's what we're here for, captain!"

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_"Hey! Is that the HLX with its new pilot?"_  Chris couldn't help it. His normally sedate ego puffed up like a marshmallow in a microwave! Hawler got instant respect and a little part of that is his. THankfully, Big Nine answered before he did and made a fool of himself. Remembering who is in charge, he let the happy feeling fill him as the advanced on the next group of mechs. He looked over the bird's eye view as the DF2 handled the business of walking and organizing their forces.

Huh.

He zoomed out and checked to see what way the robots were heading.

They'd take out the southern-most group. If the other five kept marching on their current direction..? <Wolf Lake. It's right there in the southeast of town. It opens to Lake Michigan with that new shipping canal. Think there's more of 'em stashed under there?>

"If we can get behind 'em, we can take 'em out easy." Becker spoke on the radio as the group moved up toward the the next phalanx of Reds. 

Now they were getting closer to the parts of town that didn't have time to evacuate. In the streets are normal cars on fire and riddled with bullet holes. Dead citizens lay where they'd been gunned down. A woman knelt next to the corpse of a man, sobbing. A fedex truck lay on it's side, the driver holding a broken arm as he looked at the mangled mess. The sounds of warfare came close.

A school bus smoldered, having crashed into an alley trying to escape; being too long to make the tight turn. From the thousands of bullet holes in the yellow paint, rivulets of blood dripped. Thermals showed no survivors.

"Jesus." Mendez uttered.

Just up head the next group of robots marched. As the group came up from behind, Mendez didn't even wait, popping off a round right into the middle of the Red Steel.

\---------------

In the financial district, one of the MRAVs exited as fast as it could. It's eight wheels screeching as it powered along, hustling through red lights and knocking Lexuses onto their sides. After five minutes it came to halt in front of the small safe zone by Northwestern University. Out of the back poured Toren's swat team, and in between them was a figure wriggling in a net. A figure that kept apologizing.

"Got another one for your Doc!" Unceremoniously putting the bound person into one of the holding cells that'd been liberated from the mobile laboratory, THe net soon shredded revealing the form of James McConnell. THe reported looked haggard, his nose was bloody and he sobbed. His left arm had sprouted steel spikes through his flesh. His legs seemed to work on their own and they moved him to the door of the cell, and the hand began to slash uselessly at the tough bulkhead. "I can't stop! Please! You have to help me! I can't stop it!" His right eye glowed red.

One of thousands, in roughly the same fate. Dr Bae Miller scowled at the man. "Did you download any updates? Did you patch your software?" THis was getting tiresome. She had enough corpses to autopsy, she needed answers as did the rest of the city.

"I.. AUGH!" Thick metallic barbs popped out of the man's shoes, and he KICKED at the door with a fury. "NO! STOP! I.. Last week! Last week I patched! I I .." As the pain and blood loss and panic became too much, he sagged as his body continued the assault.

"Keep this one. It seems lucid. Good job Officers. Nab me any that you can safely. I'll try to have something the next time you come back." She turned and walked toward the tent that had a number of freshly liberated body parts. All of chinese manufacture. Last week? That might give her some kind of insight. Thankfully, the websites with the most recent patches were easy to locate..

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Blackouts were rolling through the city, darkening streets already dusky from the meager natural light from high above the concrete jungle. Nobody was tuned into the news, but if they were, they'd have caught a breaking story being broadcast across the nation. And this one  _wasn't_  about Chicago:

_"We've been getting in reports all across the Midwest as data centers in Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and the Dakotas are, say witnesses at these locations, being sabotaged by their own employees. Amazon, Netflix, Google, and other e-commerce and streaming giants are currently scrambling to do damage control, millions of users around the world are currently without access to 90% of the internet. Those numbers are expected to rise sharply in the coming hours,"_  the harried newsanchor said.  _"The president has declared a state of emergency, and officials are encouraging civilians to stay inside and keep updated via radio, if you have access to one. We'll have more as the facts come in, so please stay tuned. For our radio news network, tune into AM 970..."_

\---

_< Wolf Lake. It's right there in the southeast of town. It opens to Lake Michigan with that new shipping canal. Think there's more of 'em stashed under there?>_

<I do,> came the firm reply. <We'll take Becker and two of Mendez's crew with us. The rest can mow down those flimsy red cans without me.> Hawker reminded Chris of this with a mere prod of abstract thought that he was capable of operating in up to 800 feet of water. <Make sure your ears are good n' popped.>

The dead were everywhere. Storefront windows shattered into sparkling glitter across broad sidewalks. Cars were overturned, aflame; some with their passengers still inside. They reeked of the acrid stench of burning lithium and potent sulfur. How many Tesla batteries had gone up in smoke in the past half hour here? Didn't matter: Hawker's sensors knew that this air wasn't safe to breathe. 

[O2 SOURCE: AMBIENT (SWITCHING).]  
[O2 SOURCE: ON-BOARD: COMBAT RATIO: 45%.]  
[PILOT: LIFE SUPPORT: PARTIAL.]  
[PILOT: GREEN.]

Hawker's 'breath' filled Chris' lungs as the mask filled with warmer, cleaner air. Its higher oxygen-ratio would have made him feel a little more awake, too. A little more focused, energized. Ready.

The sight of a child's body in the doorway of a restaurant, obscured by the corpse of her mother attempting to protect her, filled him with a keening fury so powerful that it left little room for Chris to feel his own feelings. These fuckers would  _pay_. And pay  _dearly_. Concrete crunched under his heavy footfalls, pounding the crumbs to dust. Blood and oil and who knows what else mingled together in smears, in spatters, in pools. Sobbing to his left. Hoarse moaning to his right. Tertiary sensors picked up trembling in a dim alley at his 8 o'clock low. 

Mendez's tank surged across the broken cityscape behind the mech, and with a heavy BOOM, she fired something at the group of Ruskiebots ahead of them. It exploded, but wasn't ordnance - its casing broke open into flak, and two mechs were suddenly covered in an off-white sticky substance that expanded into puffy globs that quickly made it difficult for the machines to move. Their servos whined and smoked as their AIs struggled to figure out what was happening. That was one of Mendez's tar-bombs: the flypaper. Soon, the pair of mechs had tripped over each other into a useless pile on the ground, dropping their guns. The rest of them turned and began firing. MRAVs opened up, and Hawker darted off to the side, out of their line of fire, to get closer and land a few good shots of his own.

"C'mon," somebody growled over the radio. "C'mon! Face down, ass up, you pieces of shit!"

He  _really_  wanted to melee these things, after what they did. He knew they couldn't feel like a human could, but the display of retribution was what was important. 

 

* * *

 

 

 Chris barely had to breathe in, just start inhaling and Hawker filled his lungs. The restraints on his stomach felt like they were pressing inward as well, then releasing as he exhaled. The big mech took control of one more thing from his cute, obedient pilot.  
  
The Russian robots of this division looked less ocean-encrusted, not as many muscles and seaweed draped over their bodies. Each robot held an AK-47 like a normal human would hold a handgun. THe stuck ones wriggled in a what that could only be described as comical. COmical murder-bots. Machine and man sprinted down an alley, circling around to flank the rows of reds.  
  
The MRAVs didn't have the firepower to take out the crapcans dead on easy, but they could pepper the ones sideways or the ones that hadn't turned yet. Two went up as 301 and 303 began concentrating on targets. The tanks though, had a trickier problem. The wrong ammo and you'd turn a single can into shreds while bunker-busting the street.   
  
"Bastards are still in formation." Mendez growled. They were murdering the people of his city, of their city. Someone is going to pay! "Captain's gone around. Drop two rounds of corrosives in their ranks. Should be stuck on before he gets into range." Ammo rechambered and the lightweight tanks fired their main armaments twice. Great green-yellow splatters of liquid poured over the heart of the robotic regiment. THe ones directly hit went down as their guns melted, joints and circuits seizing as the awful stuff melted their complex parts.  
  
The heavy footfalls of the vanguard didn't halt, and it plowed into the rear of the red menace. Six of them crumpled from the hockey-style tackle before the momentum came to a halt. Chris ensured that Hawker didn't so much as lay a pinky on corroded parts before it used the remains to clear out eight more. Pulling out the side arm, one well aimed shot into the exposed rear batter pack is perfect to pop them like targets at a shooting range. In just three minutes the red wave lay dead, the combined fire having wiped out the entire 32 robots.  
  
\---  
  
Kole got off the line with the chief of police for the 4th time in an hour. Standing in the command center of 42, he helped direct the continuous damage control as more terrible things kept cropping up. The gang attacks were high on a lethal cocktail of drugs, PCP being a key ingredient. They were flowing through the sewers and subways even with all service shut down. Around all the stations a thick cordon of civilians packed in, desperate for someplace safe. He'd had to pull back units to patrol the nearby streets.   
  
He had good information, and the map of his part of Chicago showed very little in terms of good news. That sole good news came from the heavy units engaging the robots. Tsung reported right in, updating as a second red dot faded to black on the overlay. Hawker's icon began to head off on the same line that the red group had been advancing along. THe MRAVs and Tanks taking a different tack to head up toward a higher vantage point when the marching groups converged on Wolf Lake.  
  
 

* * *

 

 "Captain's gone around. Drop two rounds of corrosives in their ranks. Should be stuck on before he gets into range."  
  
The corrosive shells had, like every other piece of equipment in the military and paramilitary worlds, a nickname: liquid cancer. It could turn steel to putty in seconds, and all but vaporize even well-protected electronics. Even its fumes was about as painful to breathe as fiberglass dust and as caustic as sucking on a car's tailpipe. Chris made sure his mech didn't get  _near_  the stuff - it would have done a number on those big black stompers too.  
  
He body-checked them - checked six of them, actually - with guns blazing. The battle-cry, muffled behind the mask, still vibrated in his cockpit. " _Worthless_  pieces of -!"  
  
_CHUK-CHUK-CHUK-CHUK_  
  
Rounds thicker than two of Chris' fingers buried themselves in the half-sized machines. Brass shone faintly in the dying light, and the spend casings went flying in all directions, littering the ground like metal confetti. A few of the cans went staggering backward just in time to get hit with the Brownings behind them, popping their cells and laying waste to another suspiciously weak regiment of machines.  
  
\---  
  
"Becker, you're with me," Hawker ordered, waving the #301 towards him. "And Mendez, I need two of your tanks, if you can spare any."  
  
"I can, sir, but where you taking 'em?"  
  
"I'm taking 'em fishing, lieutenant."

 

* * *

  

<Wikipedia is still up. Says Wolf Lake is only 50 feet deep after it was dredged for shipping. If there's anything in there, won't be too hard to find.> Chris braced himself as they reached the water's edge. The liquid felt cool, and he tried to hold is breath as the mud squished up under the broad war stompers. Heavy sonar pings emanated from the HLX, they got chest deep and approached where the canal 's groove lay. So far there wasn't any unexpected returns. Broad smooth lake bed, a few merchant vessels at dock. Nothing moving bigger then a trout.  
  
PING.  
  
One, very LARGE trout. Perhaps 200 feet away, moving toward where the other robots would converge. Each step underwater took time, they had to be careful with their foot. Watch for the worst of the mud pockets with their ground penetrating radar. The water was very clear for the river, with little having disturbed it, behind the HLX a cloud of silt ripple and whirled. A similar cloud could be seen as a second object came closer.  
  
One surprisingly pristine HLX-6, barely a barnacle on it. 'The walking trashcan.' The lack of additional armaments aside from the main shoulder cannon marked it as one of the russian knockoffs; as did the great red star on it's chest.

 


	18. The 30-Hour Invasion: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where somebody gets hurt.

_< Wikipedia is still up. Says Wolf Lake is only 50 feet deep after it was dredged for shipping. If there's anything in there, won't be too hard to find.>_  
  
Thank Christ for overseas server farms.  
  
The early nightfall of late November meant the whole place was eerily dark by now. It was like the water ate up all the light and laid like a flat, endless pool of black. He  _knew_  there was something in there. Behind them, Becker parked his MRAV on the beach. It wouldn't be of much help from the surface, but another set of eyes never hurt, and if whatever was there came out, they stood a chance of slowing it down. The tanks had parked themselves on the downward slope of two nearby hills so their turrets could fire into the water if necessary, another bit of help. The flytraps and corrosives wouldn't be of any use below the surface, but the flashbangs might, and the shells  _definitely_  would. If they didn't miss, that is.  
  
The water temperature was a good 37 degrees - icy cold, and as a hard wind blew south from Lake Michigan, Hawker expected to see ice forming at the edges of the dredged marsh any minute now. But in they went. He stowed his guns again as that thick, dark water rushed around his long strides, and reached for the knife. Sonar engaged - something he'd only used once before - and the cockpit suddenly felt like the claustrophobic hull of a submarine. Hawker felt like a bat; he could feel-hear the sound waves returning back to them, helping the pair make sense of the pitch blackness.  _Ping._  A rock here, a patch of grass there; an anchor, a line of lost rope collecting barnacles.  _Ping._  Nothing but the two of them were moving, slowly, heavily through the water.  
  
 _Ping._  
  
A shape!  
  
 _Ping._  
  
Big. About as big as the Vanguard-class HLX, and moving.  
  
<Incoming; speed at 20 knots,> the mech said. <Brace yourself, kiddo.>  
  
The HLX-6 had a special place in Hawker's CPUs. He hated them with his every weld, every wire, every fuel rod. It was an HLX-6 that killed Lee, and if you asked him, every single one of them needed to be scrapped. And he wanted to do the scrapping. By hand. Hawker hated their squat shape, their thick legs, their headless torso. He hated their AI, and deep down he hated their pilots too.  
  
But right now, he hated this one the most.  
  
[CORE TEMPERATURE: 325C (CLIMBING)]  
[COCKPIT TEMPERATURE: 25C (HOLDING)]  
  
Hawker didn't wait for it to make a move. He lunged as best he could in this watery environment, engaging his shoulder-mounted floodlights at the last minute to hopefully blind whoever the fuck was inside that thing. The knockoff was quick, though, and the trench knife grazed the side of its ugly body.  _SKRRAK_. A single pair of sparks lit up the water at the contact like red fireflies, disappearing just as quickly. Hawker had meant for that hit to be a killing blow.  
  
Instead, he got an uppercut to the chin, throwing him off-balance.  _CRACK_.  
  
<Son of a -!>

 

* * *

 

 

 _CRACK._  
  
Chris felt that hit too.  
  
Thankfully, it hit on the heavy armor of the mech's chin and the clear bulletproof panels remained intact for now. The force of the impact snapped the mech's head back and rocked them on their balance. Chris is not a perfect pilot, but he did step in to ensure that they came down sure-footed.  
  
His mind is suddenly filled with a hatred for the machine that stood at arm's reach. It had a far simpler AI, one that is more enslaved to the operator within. It could be fully automated but that is unlikely. What is likely is that it would command the red army with a human inside to cause greater destruction. Judging by its nearly pristine hull, it hadn't been under for more then a day.  
  
CHris knew about it's strength, it's mobility, and how durable the squat trashcan was. It didn't appear to have a melee weapon, beyond it's fists. On the surface the punch it landed on their torso would have been bad. Under the surface, the water slowed down everything so that it just CLANGED loudly.  
  
There was no doubt that the punch had been aimed at the chest cavity, the pilot compartment where Chris sat. That got Celn thinking. The likelihood was down here neither could do much harm to the other, not even with a stab of the seriously wicked knife. Like to tortoises fighting.  
  
...  
  
<Boss, we got plenty of artillery on the surface. Can we chuck this guy around or sink him in the mud?> THe knife screeched as it travelled down the arm of the HLX-6, catching on armor here and there. "Oh hell, just TOSS him, he can't weight more then your load limit under the surface!>

 

* * *

 

 

Chris' suspicions quickly became Hawker's suspicions. Why had he bothered? He knew the inertia down here was pitiful.  
  
 _< Boss, we got plenty of artillery on the surface. Can we chuck this guy around or sink him in the mud? Oh hell, just TOSS him, he can't weight more then your load limit under the surface!>_  
  
<You're right,> he 'grunted', stepping back from his seething hate. It had narrowed his focus dangerously - thankfully Chris was there to spot him. <I like your way better, kid.>  
  
Hawker quickly sheathed his knife and bum-rushed the enemy mech, grabbing it by the arm and knee and taking off toward the shore as fast as his legs could carry him down here. The HLX-6 fought the whole way, slowing him down.  _Ping._  
  
<Motherfucking... Ugh!>   
  
The Six was putting up a good fight and it quickly devolved into a wrestling match that slowly made its way back to the beach.  _Ping_.  
  
While Hawker was busy subduing with the trash can, Chris would have noticed two more big blips on sonar. Appearing suddenly and too close for comfort: the hallmark of a cloak.  
  
"How's it going down there?" Becker ventured over the radio. "I can see your lights moving!"  
  
"It's... going!" the mech ground out, trying to fist both of the mech's arms. They were still too far below the surface to attempt a throw.

 

* * *

 

 

It is a very strange thing to be fighting in all that murk and silt. There is no 'seeing' anymore, Hawker could put a hand on his faceplate and not see it. Whoever is in the other mech had to be suffering the same problem. Fighting underwater blind isn't good.  
  
Chris keyed the radio as the cockpit shook. "Got a Fresh Soviet HLX-6 under here. Trying to bring it up!"  
  
Hawker's sonar and the HLX-6 sonar actively pinged each-other constantly. The particulates in the water made most of those sensors useless. They did have a good scan of the area though, GPS worked fine, and the other tanks and MRAVs had locators.  
  
Mendoza spoke, very tactfully on the reply. "If you can get it on the surface, we and hole it." He knew that an HLX-6 had done 5 months ago. Not even beck had anything to say about -that.-  
  
The water frothed and roiled, sediment churned up as they made their way toward shore. Ont he surface, a ripple appeared where they grappling mechs pushed shore-ward.   
  
PING. HLX6, lots of sediment.  
  
Two more ripples appeared, converging on the brawlers. Had it been daylight, Tsung would have spotted them with ease. But in the evening , the subtle waves are lost in the commotion.  
  
Chris was helping, guiding every footfall, ensuring their every step move them toward their goal.   
  
PING. HLX6, lots of sediment. A ping form the 6, itself, lost sof sediment. He helped push an arm down, missing the clutching claws of the 6.  
  
PING. HLX6, Sediment, Two unknowns.  
  
Normally the pings are sent out every few seconds. Chris over-rode the time to send out repeated buzzes that turned the flat radar screen into what looked like an oscilloscope doing vector graphics. Two Blotches, coming in.  
  
He mashed on the radio "We have two incoming!" <8 O'clock high, 5 O'clock low.> His inexperience had him suddenly nervous, what should they do? He hoped Hawker did.

 

* * *

 

 

Having two brains controlling your body, steadying, calculating, feeling out every movement was a boon in situations like this. You had a spotter, and he was  _in your body with you_.  
  
The lights were doing more harm than good now, washing out everything in the churning muck. He killed them, relying on little more than a compass to tell them that they were going in the right direction.  
  
 _"We have two incoming!" <8 o'clock high, 5 o'clock low.>_ Chris' hesitation was suddenly palpable, and the mech tried to reassure him with confident, stoic mental impressions.  
  
<One thing at a time...> Hawker doubled down, sent his body into overdrive to get this damn mech to the surface. With any luck, the others would follow.   
  
[CORE TEMPERATURE: 330C (CLIMBING)]  
[COCKPIT TEMPERATURE: 27C (CLIMBING)]  
  
He could feel the sweat beginning to bead on the nape of Chris' neck under the rubber. Outside, the water heated to a rolling boil around the armor covering his reactor core, sending hot, steaming fizz to the surface. Power surged into his limbs, and with one last snarl he hefted that  _goddamn piece of shit_  close enough to the shallows to lift him into the air and come careening out of the water. "GRRAGH! Now, now!" he shouted over the radio.  
  
Steam hissed, water sprayed, splashed, foamed. Engines roared, servos whirred. Hawker stood in knee-deep water, the HLX-6 above his head for a precious few seconds before he THREW the damn thing at the carefully parked pieces of a nearby caisson, obliterating the concrete and warping the sheet metal.   
  
 _KRA-BOOM!_  
  
The big machine whirred angrily as it hurried out of its compromised position. Hawker wanted nothing more than to sink his knife right into the cockpit, but Becker and Mendez's boys were on it like white on rice. Flypaper, then a healthy dose of 50-cal lead, and the thing stopped moving. If the pilot was dead, they didn't know, didn't care, didn't have time to check. Because the water suddenly surged at the entrance of two more Sixes - this time, each of them were equipped not just with an autocannon, but a miniature battery of a half-dozen modified BGM-71 anti-tank missiles.  
  
Becker was the first on radio. "Fuck fuck fuck...! Fire, dammit,  **fire!** "

 

* * *

 

 

Chris relegate his mind to watching those two blips as Hawker wrestled with the enemy. He dialed back the sonar, enough to track the damned things. It had to be more of the same, they were moving at about the same speed. They needed to deal with the one in their hands first.

_< One thing at a time...>_ came the thought just as Chris was realising the same thing. His boss had the experience to know just what to do, before he did.

In a maneuver that would have been on the cover of a mechwarrior game, Hawker emerged from the water with the HLX-6 in a deadlift, then HURLED it a good thirty feet. Easily 4 tons of soviet steel with a pilot within.

That much mass doesn't get thrown without some kind of reaction. It was agonisingly slow to draw their feet from the mud, having sunk down with the added weight. Pulling a booted foot up from the sucking depts, finding a place to set it down and draw the other out, WHILE getting advanced on.

At least the first 6 was knocked out, the two tanks and two MRAAs had plenty of time to position and having support fire ready the moment the mechs separated. They hard to turn their gaze to face the new threat.

_"Fuck fuck fuck...! Fire, dammit, fire!"_

It took time to re-orient, to aim and to load cannons. Time that none of the 4 armored vehicles would have if those missiles went off. 

Even the best missiles had problems though. You didn't want to fire one at a close up target, for example. The explosion would injure you as well. And if you shot at a target too close, the missile might only be travelling 80 mph. Speeds at which a mech could slap it out of the air, as they often did with lobbed grenades.

The 5 O'Clock Mech is emerging out of the water a little later than the 8 O'Clock one. By the time they'd taken their first step to turn, the 8 HLX-6 wisely chose to bring it's cannon to bear.

Time slowed to a crawl as their mind both jumped into high gear.

Chris felt terror, armaments had no such foibles, leaving the barrel as-near-as-dammit top speed. Their heat is rising as well. They were going to take a hit. Unwanted flashbacks were brewing in both of their memories. Flashbacks Hawker had experienced first hand, an that Chris had re-lived though before altering.

Their torso should angle, let the round impact their back if possible, they had weapons and ammo back there. And their own munitions popping would be better than taking those slugs full on. 

<Tackle the deeper one and drive it in.> Their far hand, the one not on the side of the 8 o'clock HLX-6 needed the knife. It is an awkward gesture, and everything seems to move so slow, the water getting in the way of their legs!

The blade needed to be turned and almost held with the pommel in their palm. The would sing the knife with 6-plus tons of force into that hated shape. They would twist and rend (Chris had a memory of his own bubble up that Hawker saw. Snow on the ground, blood EVERYWHERE, and a gurgling body at his feet) and murder the pilot and mechanicals within.

Missiles don't 'do' going into water, so they'd have cover. The auto cannon was recoiling now. Each millisecond above the surface meant another possible round would hit them. Chris pushed for FASTER processing, greedily sucking up the internal bandwidth as he put a wall in neurospace for them both. <Ignore the other. It's weapons Don't matter. It cannot hurt us.>

Rounds did impact. Chris Shielded Hawker from the hits, allowing the mech to focus it's savagery on the damned thing they were lunging toward. <Open that can, tear out the meat inside, eat your fill!> Goaded the pilot.

Something did get through his neurospace filter, because it was unexpected. On bottom of the radio spectrum, the ultra-slow stuff, the two HLX-6's passed a single word between them First as a question, then as an answer.

"Ishcheyka?" questioningly fearful from the 5 o'clock unit.

  
"Ishcheyka!" angry confirming from the 6 o'clock unit.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _< Tackle the deeper one and drive it in.>_  
  
<Agreed.>  
  
The knife was whipped out, grip held in the vice of Hawkers fingers. He was poised like a human fighter: feet set apart, arm out, bent - it was all for stability and mobilizing lightning-quick leverage. The missile batteries were wet, and steam rose from them as heat sources rushed to dry them out.  
  
"Hawker! Chris! Get the hell out of the way!" shouted Becker in his MRAV. His gunner swiveled the mounted Browning, trying to get a shot in.   
  
"Give me  _ten seconds_!" the mech roared, and lunges. The Six tried a feint, but Hawker was more agile up here. The knife didn't quite find its target, but it sunk into a shoulder with an explosion of sparks, and the limb went dead.  
  
" _WE DON'T HAVE TEN SECONDS, CAPTAIN!"_  
  
The second Six didn't hesitate, and a wall of dirt shot up into the air as it trailed bullets along the ground in a long sweep, the pilot trying to get a bead in the twilight without tracers.  _PKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPK_  The last few bullets sank into one of the SWAT tanks, and it hurried into a jarring reverse, firing whatever the hell it was they had in the chamber. More cursing over the radio.  
  
The round, a concussive, grazed Hawker's shoulder just before he went to land another hit on his chosen Six and was thrown completely off-balance. The concussive went flying straight up into the air, detonating a few feet from Hawker's head.  _ **KBOOM!**_  The shockwave sent him to his knees.  _PKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPKPK!_  Bullets hit his fingers and pain shoots up into his foreprocessors.   
  
[DAMAGE: 8%]  
[ALL SYSTEMS: GREEN.]  
  
Chris was doing his best to keep his captain focused, steady. The human inside of him was his anchor. Optics locked onto the Six again, and he pushed up from the ground.  
  
But he stopped when he heard words.  
  
Words he hadn't heard since... before  _this_  Hawker was born.  
  
"Ishcheyka?" the voice crackled.  
  
Time slowed down as the syllables buried deep down into his memory nets, burrowed in like a tick sucking blood.  
  
"Ishcheyka!"  
  
A missile hit him. Becker was yelling, he'd tried to shoot it out of the air, but Hawker was too close. The lakefront lit up in a ball of fire, and Hawker was enveloped in a cloud of thick, black smoke.  
  
 _Ishcheyka._  
  
Damage reports flooded in. The mech found he was on his back, but the knife was still in his hand. Status lights inside the cockpit flashed red. Was Chris OK?   
  
 _FSHHH KRA-BOOM!_  
  
One of the SWAT tanks jumped up into the air, gutted. Its pair of pilots choked to death on 1000-degree air almost instantly.  
  
 _Ishcheyka._  
  
Hawker was suddenly blind with rage. He leapt up, shoulder leaking, burbling coolant as his systems worked to cut off the leak like a damaged ship closing its bulkheads. There was only one thing on his mind now:  _kill_.

 

* * *

 

 

The word meant something to the AI. It was it's name. It had been it's name. The brought up images of cold, snowy days. Imagine soft, fragile humans in horrific pain. Chris felt those memories, sifting through them as the came up in bits and pieces at the worst possible time.  
  
 _Ishcheyka._  
  
Bloodhound?   
  
Then that missile detonated next to them. Chris let out a cry of pain, the hit rolling over the surface of the vanguard's metallic skin. They'd been hit by kinetic rounds as well, friendly or enemy it didn't matter. The reactor temperature had left the green zone and travelled well into yellow. The human felt the paralyzing indecision, as the old name brought up thoughts, commands and scraps of a different personality. Grasping the knife tight, he took the reins and had the mech fall into the thigh-deep water of the lake.  
  
The water boiled on their backside, stabilizing the temperature. Chris triggered the safety protocols, ensuring that the worst hydraulic ruptures wouldn't bleed out their system. They were just below the surface, the waves exposing their side as the rookie tried to pull control. Hawker was there, like a damned immobile wall, locked in the possibilities of his past.  
  
That effort he'd expended before happened again, this time in reverse. Chris fed into the anger he felt, the horrible AI that had been Ishcheyka. Each time Hawker tried to recall or experience one of those memories, Chris snatched the errant thought and stuffed it into a a mental file. He needed his boss running, otherwise the vehicles on shore would die, then it'd be 2 on 1 with no backup.  
  
<Hawker. Captian. Ishcheyka! GET UP!> Mentally, the human slapped the machine, for a moment the two equal sized. Chris PUNCHED the Deep Field 2 mentally, only diminishing in size once Hawker came back.  
  
Precious seconds had passed. Their temperatures were back in the green, just.  
  
Chris is helping now, directly. As they stood their empty hand reached out, grasping the nearest HLX6 but it's broken arm. Above the surface they HAD the momentum to get their knife through the side of the soviet mech. Satisfying sparks and the groaning of bending metal filled their audi receptors. The knife went deeper, all the way to it's 30" hilt. Like winding up an old car window, they CRANKED the knife, stirring up the contents. Pilot, wiring, sensitive equipment ruptured and bled as Hawker drew the enemy closer. Shoving the knife down, then up, they enlarged the hole to the point that they could read within.  
  
Looking down, the managed form of the terrified soviet pilot coughed up blood as the knife rattled and gouged that inside material.  
  
Chris didn't even  _hesitate_ , giving every bit of authority to his Boss. <KILL HIM!>

 

* * *

 

 

[CORE TEMPERATURE: 340C (CLIMBING)]  
[COCKPIT TEMPERATURE: 29C (CLIMBING)]  
[COCKPIT AIR CIRC: ENGAGED.]  
  
[SYNC RATE: 99.88%]  
[PILOT: STABLE]  
[PILOT VITALS: HR: 118BPM BP: 142/90MMHG RR: 29BMP TEMP: 37C]  
  
[ALL SYSTEMS: YELLOW (DROPPING)]  
  
Hawker didn't even notice when Chris ventured to take further active control of his bodily movements - after all, the two were nearly one mind. It would have taken thought to separate out the impulses that weren't his own now. Conscious thought that he was barely generating.  
  
He was acting on hindprocesses now.  
  
Water. Water surrounded them with hissing and angry roiling. Somewhere out there, beyond the reaches of waking memory, was frigid, unending snow. Ice. Frost spattered with red, brown, yellow. There was hate there, too.  
  
The snow kept fizzling from memory, though, and it wouldn't be until later that he'd know why the old data kept disappearing into the ether as soon as it was conjured. All there was was the boiling water. Confusion. Rage at two overlapping, contradictory lives suddenly clawing for dominance. Coexistence. Lee Davidson's Hawker and Siberia's Bloodhound: so very different, but... so alike.  
  
 _< Hawker. Captian. Ishcheyka! GET UP!>_  
  
There was a sudden jolt of wakefulness. The AI reeled. A fist collided with his consciousness, and Celn 'yelled'. The two DF2s froze, comingled, compartmentalized. Lee's HLX-9 had won - for now. Ishcheyka was snarling at the door, still lusting for blood.  
  
[ALL SYSTEMS: GREEN.]  
  
Together, Chris and Hawker tore into the nearest Six, using its dead arm as leverage. The knife sunk in with such  _ease_ , like it were flesh. Metal croaked, rent open as Hawker growled his violence at this enemy. It took only seconds for the thing to tear open like a can of sardines, and a moment later, the mech, and Chris through his optics, were staring down into a sparking, jagged hole at a dying man. He clutched at his thigh, which had been reduced to little more than a slab of blood and ripped muscle tissue.  
  
Hawker stared, mesmerized.  _Hungry._  
  
 _< KILL HIM!>_  
  
Big Nine, as the Chicagoan refugees and 42nd precinct alike so called him, didn't think twice about reaching into that hole with his free hand and grabbing a fistful of pilot. The man screamed, long and ragged, and the whites of his terrified eyes stood out against the darkness. Hawker tightened his grip. Squeezed. The man screamed again, flailing, getting his blood everywhere. Until his lungs emptied and could fill no more. Distantly, Hawker felt the bouquet of bones in his hand cracking, crunching, their jagged edges rupturing organs. The lungs didn't fill again, and the Russian pilot flopped in his hand like a gored rag doll.  
  
Hawker dropped him like the  _disgusting spectacle of human filth_  that he was. He would have stomped him into the icy earth, too, if the HLX-6 hadn't self-destructed in the few heartbeats after its pilot flatlined.  
  
 _ **BOOOOOOM**_  
  
The mech went flying into the second tank as it sat in the shallow water, and he could feel its armor contort under the weight of such impact.  
  
 _PKPKPKPKPK- THAK THAK THAK THAK!_  
  
An enemy 50-cal autocannon found its mark again, drawing a searing line of pain across Hawker's legs. Each bullet-hole oozed machine blood, and some of them even had the luck to rip right through wiring harnesses responsible for moving his legs.  
  
"GNNNGH!"  
  
 _THAK THAK THAK THAK THAK_  
  
It aimed, this time, at the cockpit. Chris would have shielded his face, a psychological remnant of Infinite Mirror, and Hawker shielded his precious cargo with an arm that took the brunt of the attack. Still, he held onto the knife.  
  
"Holy shit, what the f...! Hawker! Chris! Status!" Becker yelled into his radio, panic rushing his words. He couldn't believe what he'd just seen, but more unbelievable was the rest of their predicament.  
  
[DAMAGE: 24%]  
[ALL SYSTEMS: YELLOW.]  
  
Tsung's voice suddenly interrupted as her small, elegant drone circled overhead. "Team, I just notice something! Structure on the Sixes backs. Never seen before." Her English was getting worse as the stress hormones were kicking in. " _Da bien, da bien, da bien,_ " she repeated under her breath quickly, in Mandarin. "Comparing to database...!"  
  
Becker roared. " _TSUNG!_ "  
  
" _Yu naixin!_ " she barked back. A second later: "OK, confirmed! I'm seeing ---!"  
  
She was interrupted by the ear-rupturing blasts of two more BGMs. Hawker rolled out of the way, and the second tank was on its back. With short-range missile #2, Hawker was hit in the same arm as before, sending him and Chris to the ground again to make their own crater. Armor plates rent apart at the shoulder, revealing the sensitive wiring, conduits, servos, and other mechanicals underneath; stuff that rarely saw the light of day. And now it wasn't just exposed, but gushing. Sparking. And every time Hawker tried moving his fingers, the pain was almost too much to bear.  
  
[DAMAGE: 38%]  
  
<Chris...>  
  
" _HAWKER!_  We need to get out of here! I repeat, get the  _fuck_  out of here! We're way in over our heads!"  
  
Mech and pilot staggered to their feet, switching knife-arms. "Give me _ten seconds_ , lieutenant," the mech growled deeply. Behind that battle mask, his face was the very picture of lusty retribution. Somewhere in him, heat was building. He wanted another human to rip apart.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris felt a thrill like he hadn't in 6 years. They'd ended a life with their own hands! The damaged Russian Pilot had broken like a handful of chicken wings. The russian been so fragile, so easy to turn into a pulp. How Hawker didn't do that with everyone who displeased him is a mystery. Of course, Ishcheyka had done just that. This had to be personal, someone is gunning for for the Deep Field 2 and they'd almost succeeded once.

<I think they wanted you to come after them Boss. They knew your old name.> And old name Chris kept having to divert old files into as they popped up. Hawker could waste sorting through them later!

Their legs were even slower now, barely faster then the HLX-6 as they slogged though the water and muck. The HLX-9 came back up after dodging missiles, it's left arm hanging uselessly down as mud sloughed off the heavy armor. Chris almost made the call to pull out their rifle and put a huge hole in the remaining HLX-6. At this range a one-handed shot wouldn't miss! But it.. it was advancing on them? They'd broken the other two in melee! Surely they third pilot should stay away and press it's ranged advantage?

"HAWKER! We need to get out of here! I repeat, get the fuck out of here! We're way in over our heads!"

Chris felt that burning need to destroy the enemy and pushed forward with the Captain. Perhaps thirty five feet from the enemy. Chris depressed the large orange button with his right hand, his left maneuvering the joystick that he'd normally use to guide their footfalls. A heavy CLUNK occurred in the cabin, and the pilot's chair unlocked and moved on it's shock absorbers up and to the left. Letting go of the button, the chair locked back into place again steadying him against the rocking footfalls. The padded restraints on Chris's left arm opened up with a thought, allowing him to reach up and rip the cover off a junction box. As it clattered down in the bottom of the cabin, he risked the infinite vision for a moment as he looked over what he saw. His index finger wrapped around the little-used lever and PULLED!

At that moment, Hawker's left arm when utterly numb. It became a phantom limb, still mobile, but unfeeling. Another pull and the HLX-9's chest and shoulders sensors went out as well.

The enemy is within reach, their good arm had been pulled back, it swung around for the stabbing thrust.

Tsung's voice carried over the radio "---It's a Tazer, a MECH Tazer! Enough for YOU out with big EMP!"

The HLX-6 's backpack extended a single pole down into the mud as it brought up it's previously unused 'normal' arm. Multiple tracking and targeting lasers scanned over the brawny torso of Big Nine as it swung in. In near-perfect snap, it had struck first, landing right where it had been aiming. The overvolted capacitors on it's back smoked and a terrible high pitched noise could be heard. A sound like a dentist's drill. Chris pulled the other breakers, whatever was about to happen, Hawker wouldn't feel a thing. For good or ill. 

<I love you.>

It grew louder, heat and sparks filled the area by Chris's feet. In perhaps the space of 2 seconds, it had broken through one of the tiny and necessary gaps in the frontal armor, that Hawker needed so he could bend. There was a metallic thud as the smoking drillbit popped out into the cabin, burning against the rubber suit with a horrid smell. A fan of fine metallic shining slivers, spring out like an inverted umbrella. 

Through his legs, his thighs and his right arm; into the electronics of the cabin. They'd have turned his organs into swiss cheese if he'd been sitting center like he is supposed too.

Then those finely threaded spikes of metal danced with power.

Chris's nerves arced with fiery pain, shocks flowed through him as his heart palpitated, and the cabin sparked and electronics burned. Systems shut down in mech and man.

The HLX-6 Began to smoke, the grounding rod not quite up to it's job in wet mud. Electrical power flowed into the water around them visibly arching. Then the 30" blade pressed into the close HLX-6. It dug into the same place as the previous hit, the sudden shocks making it dance. The blade gouged up and down and electrified weapon turned full circle as both operators SCREAMED.

Silence, black smoke pouring out of the HLX-6, it's pilot sobbing in broken russian. The russian pilot is older, perhaps in her late forties; she cried Ishcheyka while crutching at her own wounds. Within Hawker, damaged systems automatically rerouted as the smouldering pilot turned into a dull white echo within neurospace; his blood dripping from twenty two wounds. The mask pumped air into his lungs, his heat dutifully beat, pumping blood out through those holes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In those moments, Chris had seen something, anticipated something, that the machine had not. Whatever experience Hawker had had with conventional combat, before he became Ishcheyka or since, was being drowned out by the conflicting inputs and his single-minded need to destroy the Russian machine by any means necessary. Chris was moving inside of him, shifting, touching things. He suddenly couldn't feel his bum arm anymore.  
  
[HAPTIC NET: PILOT MANUAL OVERRIDE.]  
[HAPTIC NET: INTEGRITY: RA: 99% LA: 0% RL: 100% LL: 92% T: 94% H: 99%]  
  
"---It's a Tazer, a MECH Tazer! Enough for YOU out with big EMP!" repeated Tsung, shouting. But she still sounded far away to the mech. "I repeat,  _enough for you!_ "  
  
Becker's voice was distant on the radio. "Tsung, we need a medical evac ASAP! Team Hawker isn't answering my hails, I don't know what the fuck is going on! We need backup!"  
  
 _...need backup!_  
  
...backup.  
  
 _ **"I repeat, this is Davidson, requesting backup!"**_  
  
Another parasite burrowed and he was smacked back into a different sense of the present. The shallow water of the lake was gone, replaced by a ruined street, upturned cars and broken glass. But the three players remained the same: Hawker, his pilot, and the Six, staring them down with that modified 50-cal autocannon. The three of them were the only things that mattered now. Neurospace warped, stretched against this version of reality. It wasn't the contents of the black box that was bubbling up - Chris had broken that like a child breaking fine china - but it was Hawker's own memory of the memory this time. Imperfect, but all the more vivid in that way that dreams could be more real than the waking world. The intensity of color. The immense weight of small moments, small details.  
  
 _Lee..._  
  
Hawker knew how the story ended, but he was moving slowly compared to Chris, that little beating human heart inside of him. Chris, not Lee.  
  
Chris.  
  
 _Not_  Lee.  
  
[PILOT: NAME: CELN, CHRIS SSN: 003-877-1924 DOB: XX-XX-2034 SEX: M AGE: 24 BMI: 21.3]  
  
 _We need to settle on a birthdate for you because I'm gonna throw you a party, kiddo. 25 is a milestone in this world._  
  
[SYNC RATE: 99.25% (HOLDING: +/-1%)]  
[PILOT: STABLE]  
[PILOT VITALS: HR: 121BPM BP: 143/91MMHG RR: 30BMP TEMP: 37C]  
  
[ALL SYSTEMS: YELLOW (HOLDING)]  
  
The Russkie mech engaged its TAZER unit. Something in him clattered to the floor of his cockpit. Sensation fizzled out of his chest, and he could no longer feel the person inside of him. Panic.  
  
The need to kill dissolved and Ishcheyka cowed in the face of Hawker's sudden fear.   
  
<Chris, what are you DOING? Chris!>  
  
He knew exactly what Chris was doing. Superimposed on this, happening right now, was Lee's ghost again. Blowing the hatches and running straight at the barrel of that gun. Except that this time, the outcome wouldn't get logged away in a black box. Hawker would be around to remember it for himself. He went to turn, retreat. To save them  _both_. The knife in his hand forgotten.  
  
<Chris, no. Chris.  _Chris! **I'm NOT losing another pilot again!**_ >  
  
Hawker was hit with something, he didn't know. He could only feel the vague jolt of its impact, hear the thing tear through a seam in his belly. A necessary weak point. The one tiny place where the dragon was missing a scale. The sound of metal ripping through metal is a hideous thing. No lubrication, no water to keep the friction down. It should have been excruciating, but it wasn't. The hole in the floor of his cockpit smoked, stank, was hot enough to sear flesh as the thing buried inside of him to get to its real target: Chris.  
  
 _< I love you.>_  
  
Hawker took the knife and stabbed at  _himself_. Desperately trying to pry the cruel thing out before it -  
  
Activated.  
  
No. No, no, no,  _no, NO!_  
  
There was no pain, no feeling. The only window he had was the damage reports, and the sudden ripping away of that human consciousness, leaving a searing, blinding void.  
  
[SYNC RATE: 0% (NO RESPONSE)]  
[PILOT: CRITICAL]  
[PILOT VITALS: HR: 130BPM BP: 112/70MMHG RR: 40BMP TEMP: 35C]  
[PILOT VITALS: VALUES DROPPING: HR BP TEMP]  
[PILOT VITALS: VALUES RISING: RR]  
[PILOT: CRITICAL]  
[PILOT: CRITICAL]  
[PILOT: CRITICAL]  
[PILOT: CRITICAL]  
  
"Hawker! Chris! Your status, dammit!" Becker screamed into the radio. " _What is your status!_ "  
  
The mech had cried out in pain as Chris was ripped from neurospace, had fallen to his hands and knees in the water. Air cycling roared. His limbs shook.  
  
\---  
  
"For fuck's sake... I'm coming out there!" Inside the MRAV, Becker ended his own neurospace link with the vehicle with a growl. Sweat dripped from his nose, his chin as he tore out of the hot, cramped space inside. "Kim, you're up!"  
  
His gunner, Greg Kim, looked on with eyes wide as dinner plates. "Sir, I'm only B-class!"  
  
" _Do it!_  That's an order!" He grabbed a flare gun mounted beside his seat - a low-tech distraction that still came in handy in emergency situations - and clambered out the tiny hatch as the rest of his crew raced to reorder themselves. "Cover me!"  
  
There was nothing quite so terrifying as being on foot in a mech fight. You were a two-legged mouse in a tiger's pen, and if their teeth didn't find you, their feet did. Becker quaked with adrenaline, teeth chattering, as he sprinted toward the water, sidearm in one hand, flare gun in the other. His breathing was quick and labored, but he was a trained man. He'd long since overcome his urge to flee in a dangerous situation.  
  
" _HAWKER!_ " He shouted at the giant, a great black silhouette against the sky even when down like this. His shoulder joint still sparked, and everywhere he glistened with water and oil. Becker lifted his gun and popped off a quick shot at the mech's good arm.  _PANG._  " _HEY!_ "  
  
The mech moved, and moved quickly then, as though he'd been suddenly woken from a fugue. He lunged at the Six with a snarling, wordless roar, lifting it into the air and tossing it at the first: the caisson was turned to dust under the weight of the second impact.  
  
 _CHUKKA CHUKKA CHUKKA_  went the cover fire as Hawker quickly headed for Becker. The mech moved sloppily, swaying, struggling against a tremendous, unseen injury. As soon as his feet hit the beach, he collapsed onto his knees, bracing himself against the ground. Hot air blew sand into the air, melted snow.  
  
"It's Chris," the HLX-9 rumbled, static at the corners of his voice. Becker froze. "Get him out!"  
  
The hatches opened, and more fluids poured out. Inside sat his pilot. Limp, askew, held up only by Hawker's harnesses, life support, and the metal that skewered him. The cockpit was half-dark, and when something popped, Becker turned away from the shower of yellow sparks.  
  
"Catch him!"  
  
The interface peeled away, the harnesses unlatched, and Chris slid out of the chair at this angle toward the ground. Becker jumped forward, catching him in his much stronger arms. The rookie's blood smeared everywhere and he stank of burnt hair, burnt rubber... urine from the moment his body relaxed into deep unconsciousness.  
  
The MRAV roared into position, putting itself between them and the Ruskies. Behind them, somebody climbed out of one of the tanks and fell to the ground, unmoving. As Becker looked around, he made a decision. If Chris was going to die before the evac showed up, then there was nothing anybody could do. His duty was now to prevent further loss of life.   
  
The A-class pilot laid the kid on the ground in the grass and looked up at the glowing, searing eyes of the mech. "Straighten up Big Nine, I'm gettin' in."


	19. The 30-Hour Invasion: Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Becker finally gets to pilot the HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker.

The fight in the water had taken 2 minutes from spotting the first HLX-6 until now. THe deployment of the pilot-shredding EMP had taken barely 5 seconds, aimed precisely at a spot that'd take just 2 seconds to drill through.  
  
The Pilot's chair moved inside the cockpit, adjusting to it's natural center position before the padded harnesses released the pilot. Fifty metal spikes, each like a lengthened porcupine quill, like the inside of a unwound coaxial cable clanged and bent easily. As Chris's limb body fell forward, some slid through him, leaving bloody spines behind. Others stuck in his body, twisting as he flopped out into Becker's strong arms.   
  
Burning rubber. Cooked flesh. It had the odor of fried pork.   
  
In the illumination from the MRAV and Hawker, Celn's body looked .. not too bad actually. THe skintight rubber likely was holding the worst of the wounds closed, but in just twenty seconds blood crept out from under his legs. His head is turned to the side, and the area around the implant is scorched from the voltage overflow. Each slow breath is ragged and unnatural twitching courses through his limbs.  
  
He smoldered like a freshly extinguished fire in the cold air.  
  
Becker's mouth twisted in disgust at the smells, trying not to gag as he stepped back from the rookie. He'd wanted Celn to fail. He did want to be the next pilot, he IS the right choice. Just.. not like this. Poor kid was cooked.  
  
That's what happened to Cops in Precinct 42.  
  
"Straighten up Big Nine, I'm gettin' in." Becker commanded, stowing his weapons.  
  
\---  
  
Tsung watched the horror unfold from her perspective in the sky. As terrible as it had been, she'd watched the mechs fight in awe. Hawker had taken on the enemy 1 on 3 and WON! Then came the orders. The kneeling. A tiny body on the edge of the winter beach. She turned her attention to the city, reading over what she could. Then transmitting directly to the remaining MRAV and Big Nine. "There is no medical EVAC available, the city is a war zone! And this drone can't carry shit. Get Celn on a board, strap him down and bring him back in the MRAV."  
  
Barely a pause and "WHAT YOU WAIT FOR! RED MECHS ON YOU, TWO MINUTES!!"  
  
The back of the MRAV at the news, those inside cursing as the heavy steel door opened slowly. The third pilot Lana, technically a loader/medic/driver/gunner (in that order), scrambled out the plastic stretcher in hand. "What are you doing Becker?"  
  
The tall a-class pilot already had gone hand over hand, climbing up the ladder of protrusions that jutted out from Hawker's leg. He took a moment and ripped several of the metallic splines out of the chair. "I need to figure out how to get Big Nine operational in two minutes! Where the fuck is the interface switch?" Becker shouted.  
  
Dropping the bright red board next to Chris, she put her hands on his chest and pulled. He easily slid over, and she repeated the process for his legs. Legs strapped together, arms and chest. A foam neck brace, one around his head would have to suffice.  
  
"Thirty seconds!" came Tsung's worried voice.  
  
Lana grasped the board behind the pilot's head, and dragged it over the bumpy ground. A bloody rut in the sand got left behind, and she dumped him unceremonious within the personnel carrier, slamming her hand on the power tailgate close as she got back in her seat. Greg is sweating bullets as she buckled up and took over as the second set of hands on the controls. "Just run the gun Greg. I'll move us."  
  
"Is Celn..?"  
  
"He's breathing. But if Big Nine doesn't get that rifle out before the Reds show up, we are retreating!"  
  
"And if he does?"

"Then we clean up, check the others and head back."

 

* * *

 

 Hawker gathered his wits about him as Lana Monroe dragged Chris away, his body still gleaming with the quills in the dim light. It almost looked like Christmas tree tinsel. On a black Christmas tree. He looked dead, laying there on the litter as she dragged him quickly back to the open cargo hatch of the MRAV and pulled him inside. Blood in the grass and snow behind them. At least it was better than laying him on a tarp.  
  
The mech's eyes darted down to Becker. The lieutenant was just barely too big to fit properly, he wasn't wearing the right kind of suit, and he was only an A-class - better suited for something more like the Ukrainian HLX-6 knockoffs. Better suited to linking up with a Deep Field 1 or less. But right now it wasn't what anyone was  _suited_  for. It was about what had to be done.  
  
He rose up into a proper kneel, and the black-suited cop climbed aboard, tearing out more of those metallic splinters along the way. He didn't get all of them, but it cleared space enough to sit down and do his job.  
  
"I need to figure out how to get Big Nine operational in two minutes! Where the fuck is the interface switch?"  
  
_I AM operational!_  he thought. The words came out at the same time, but his vocal unit was glitching. Pitch modulation was wonky, and his tongue felt sluggish in his mouth, slurring the words. "And I  _am_  the switch. Now get the fuck in!"  
  
He encouraged Becker with a shove of his hand, closing the damaged hatches. He had no idea how this would work out. Becker swore at the rough handling, but eventually his ass found its seat and exploratory movements from manual controls sent little tugs down into the mech's legs. If half of Hawker's haptic net hadn't been taken offline by Chris, he would have felt how awkwardly the bigger man fit. But it was now or never.  
  
"Head back against the interface array," he commanded via the speakers inside.  
  
"Thirty seconds!"  
  
"Now what!" Becker shouted.  
  
"Lie back and think of England." He engaged the interface system, which was far more robust than that of the pilot's MRAV. When that mechanical hand palmed Becker's head he yelped. Then the helmet extended down, its pieces snapping around his head, and the short, blunt needle inserted into Becker's neck, interfaces mated, and the two collided in a broken, heaving neurospace.  
  
Chris didn't puke, but Becker did when he suddenly found himself to be nearly two stories tall with the strength of a freight train. When he suddenly found himself covered in injuries, reeling from powerful layers of memories from old pilots and past lives. Not much came up, but the dribble inside the helmet would stink for the rest of the fight. A small inconvenience.   
  
<I... I... I-I can't see in color! Wh-why is everything in black and white??> came the confused thoughts of his backup pilot.  
  
<Your...> A groan as Hawker rose to his feet, still swaying. Now he was having to hold this guy's hand. <Your sync rate is only at 65%.>  
  
Becker swore under his panting breaths, coughing at the reek of his own nausea. <Fuck...>  
  
Man and machine swirled uneasily together, but Becker was still an experienced scab. He knew how to handle himself in neurospace, how to sort his thoughts, how to quickly occupy a new chassis. He muscled away the discomfort and the sheer  _force of nature_  that Hawker's DF2-enabled mind was, and stuck to the familiar. <Rifle,> he said, thoughts commanding. Commanding? The mech's scowl deepend behind the faceplate. He's let that tone slide for now because they  _needed_  this to work.  
  
<I've got one arm, shitbird. Pistols or nothing.>   
  
Hawker sensed frustration welling up inside his pilot, and his thoughts leaked out over their connection uncontrollably: images of grandeur, of heroism,  _squandered_  thanks to the hideous mess of real life. Thanks to the vomit in his helmet and his poor sync and his Big Nine at [DAMAGE: 59%].  
  
<Pistols, then!>  
  
He reached down for the one, lined it up with the belt feed and felt that familiar sensation of lead spooling from his arm.  
  
"Now!" Tsung shouted. "Hawker, Becker, your 5 o'clock! Another line of 32!"  
  
"On it, Tsung!" called the man inside. "Alright, Nine, you know how this goes: mind your sensors while I shoot!"  
  
Hawker imposed on Becker's consciousness like that wall of titanium. "No. You're here to pull the trigger when that gun barrel sights a tin can. That's  _all_  I need a scab for."  
  
"Fine!"  
  
"#301," Hawker ordered, his voice coming back. "Watch those Sixes!"  
  
"Copy, sir!"  
  
Tired, half-dead, and filled with the images of Chris laying limp and bloody on that litter, Hawker bounded around toward the encroaching unit. He was all fire and fury, and it was all he could do to not eject Becker on the spot and take care of this by hand.

 

* * *

  

Becker had never been in the HLX-9 cockpit in person. He'd used plenty of naturospace games, using the vanguard as his personal power armor. He even had an impressive character in Mechwarrior Online 3, level 100 with the vanguard equivelant.  
  
This is  _NOTHING_  like that.  
  
The seat squeezed around him and painfully compressed against his muscles. The helmet is utterly automated and controlled by the AI, it had mounted HIM, pulling his head back and giving the human a crick in the neck. His fingers wiggled, hands tried to move on the wrists to grasp at something; but the control sticks and keypads lay dormant for his own protection. Hawker's own protocols would keep the inexperienced pilot from accidentally triggering something dangerous.  
  
His own vomit dripped over his chest, slipping over his MRAV suit, as he tried desperately to control the large mech.  **WUMPF WUMPF WUMPF**  went the mechanised feet as they bled out fluids onto the sands and dirty piles of snow. Becker snarled in the cockpit, struggling in the bonds as he tried to do so much as get Hawker adjust his course by a single degree.  
  
It was like pushing against a building, trying to get the solid structure to rotate? How the fuck did you pilot the mech? This wasn't like the games or his MRAV at all!  
  
<Damn it Big Nine,> He had to shout through the mental static, it was like the mech was in another room. <What use is a pilot who just pulls the trigger?>  
  
\---  
Tsung broadcast the advancing troops to the remaining friendly ground forces. Of the six regional groups, Hawker's task group had eliminated two. The far north group had been taken down by a second contingent of MRAV & light tank combination. That same task group is busy laying down a wallop on blob five, which is just two blocks away and the firefight could be seen and head as the bright explosions shown against the buildings all around. THe remaining two marched on Wolf Lake, 64 red robots in total.  
  
As they advanced, the back row stopped at 50 yards. They held up their rifles and began firing. <OH SHIT!> Becker shouted. THe rounds bounced off the mech's heavy armor, just like rain off an umbrella. Despite the face that rounds were being fired in accurate bursts, they had little that could do to harm the damaged HLX-9.  
  
<They.. they can't hurt you?>  
  
Then a round found it's way through the whole that'd been drilled to kill Chris. It bounced around the cockpit and landed hotly on Becker's left leg. "Ow OW WOW WOOF!" he shook it off. Then Hawker began to feed him targets. The vision from the pistol's sight is just like the cannon in the MRAV. <Pull!> Becker shouted.  
  
Nothing.  
  
<FIRE!>  
  
Nothing.  
  
Struggling, Becker felt like he is pushing his hand into a frozen glove, fingers cold and unfeeling, he extended his entire awareness into Hawker's good hand and pulled the trigger.  **BOOM**  
  
<That's your SIDEARM?> he gaped as the head of the gunbot exploded. There was no time to celebrate what'd taken forever to do with the browning. THe Deep Field 2 already had another one lined up as it's heavy feet advanced them toward the little r soviet soldiers. Each pull of the trigger felt horrible, having to work every aspect of the mechanised joints.  
  
"WHY! Why are you fighting me Hawker?" Cried Becker, his hand felt ice-cold and clammy, it was like holding your fingers underwater and solving a rubic's cube. Another robot, another and another! Mercilessly he had to keep working, keep killing those hated robots.  
  
Coming up to the first row, a single kick bowled one into three of it's comrades as Hawker began to wreak destruction without a single input as becker held on for the ride.  
  
\---  
  
Lana drove the MRAV slowly, keeping the gun as stable as possible as the 8 wheeled vehicle kept it's main armor angled against the incoming fire. Above Greg did fiveshot bursts of fire from the browning, sending fire into the wall of red that advanced on Big Nine. The ones in the far back began dropping like targets on a shooting range; the massive mech taking at most three shots before blowing the top off the soviet steel. The MRAV hit pavement and Lana picked up speed, attempting to get into a flanking position while still keeping the mech in front.  
  
**BOOM!**  "Yes!" shouted Greg. The little T5 sized mechs began detonating from the browning's high-velocity shells as they got into position to nail the thinner back armor. Lana hit the brakes. In the back, the stretched slid across grated metal floor and Chris slammed up against the cockpit with a dull *thud*.  
  
Overhead Tsung watched, the red mechs had split into two groups. Most attempted to approach and encircle Big Nine while Becker piloted. However, eight had broken off and headed toward the two mechs stuck in concrete. "You got a group going for those HLX-6s>" She reported, wondering if Hawker still had enough fight left in him to get the job done.

 

* * *

 

<What use is a pilot who just pulls the trigger?>

<Plenty.> Even here Hawker's 'voice' was deep and quaking. <So long as he remembers I'm not some flimsy DF-fuckin'-1!>

Deep Field 1: the upper limit of what Lieutenant Cory Becker was rated to link with. There was really no comparison between the DF1 and DF2. It's apples and oranges. A third-grader's book report and a post-graduate dissertation. The difference between Becker the hero and Becker the struggling pilot with the taste of vomit in his mouth.

\---

When the rear volley hit, Hawker remained unfazed as Becker flinched, held his breath, cursed. He had no time for fucking kid gloves! Not when they were outnumbered 64 to  _two!_  Still, it was just a tangle of Russkie Hatchet-cans with AKs. But it would take a while to clear them out and get everyone back to 42. There was nothing for it.

The HLX-9 pressed forward like a thundering stormcloud, pistol in hand. Bullets hit him everywhere, sparked little flashes of friction, and disappeared into the night. Really? This was going to be his last stand? Against a bunch of peashooters?

<They.. they can't hurt you?>

Hawker said nothing, thought nothing, ignored Becker. He vented harshly, picked up speed.  _WHUMPF WHUMPF WHUMPF!_  Becker tried commanding him with thoughts. With  _words_. Hawker could feel it. Really? Is that  _really_  how he thought this worked? He approached the end of the line, raising his enormous boot and giving the nearest robot a hard, forward shove. It fired as it fell backwards, the AK shooting blindly into the sky. What a pathetic machine! Meanwhile, Becker was still yelling at him in neurospace. Trying to  _command_  him. 

It didn't take long for the lieutenant to realize that he needed to  _wear_  Hawker.  _Become_  Hawker. There was no telling the mech what to do if he didn't want to follow orders. But extend your body out into his, move your mind and fill all the places where his consciousness was with your own? That was how it was supposed to be. 

Becker shivered, trembled in that cramped cockpit as he struggled to reach out. Adrenaline saturated his bones, filled his blood, and it was difficult to occupy a machine that had no such organic stress response. But he got the idea. Mostly. The mech could feel Becker's weathered hand slide into his own, felt his pilot's finger on the trigger.  _Finally._

<That's your SIDEARM?>

<Yeah, what'd you think I was packing?!>

_BOOM BLAM BOOM_

Still, it was a herculean struggle, and Becker was still barely able to keep his hand in the HLX-shaped glove. 

"WHY! Why are you fighting me Hawker?"

_You don't deserve me yet,_  was the acrid reply, shielded from his pilot's overtaxed brain.

_BLAM BLAM BLAM_

He wasn't lying when he said that firing was, technically, the only thing he needed a scab for. 

Hawker's reckoning for what the Russians did to Chris was swift, and it was complete. He burned with hateful need, tearing through their line like a bull tearing into the soft belly of a matador. One machine went flying, then another.  _BLAM BLAM!_  Becker was at least catching on, helping to guide his aim. AKs went skittering across the ground or flying up into the air as they were shot out of their hands. Becker was a good shot, Hawker noted.

The MRAV came up behind them, thundering up onto the pavement to flank the now-doubled unit of red cans, the swivel-mounted Browning roaring its lead into the formation in a rough line.  _CHUKKA CHUKKA CHUK- POKPOKPOKPOKPAKPOKPAKPEK_

"Don't you even  _think_  of running out of ammo any time soon!" the mech barked across the radio.

"Got plenty left, sir!" was the teeth-gritted reply.

Hawker's subroutines had managed to do enough damage control to the arm to allow him to move it to his chest like it were in a splint and lock its position. That got it out of the way enough for him to really get balls deep. With a haggard snarl Hawker swung his pistol-arm in a great, powerful sweep, knocking the little robots to the ground. They scrabbled to get back onto their feet, but he filled them full of enough lead to brick their electronics before they even had a chance. Smoke began to fill the air from their effort.

"You got a group going for those HLX-6s!" Tsung.

Becker wanted to keep fighting the smaller robots - it felt good going up against so many weak opponents - but Hawker's attention snapped back to the lakefront as five of the cans broke formation to head for the Sixes.

<Not on my watch!>

The pair broke into a terrifyingly powerful sprint, leaving rent craters in the pavement behind them as they fired on the robots. One, two fuel cells popped, exploding unceremoniously and lighting up the vicinity. But three more reached their destination and formed a defensive shield around the downed Sixes as they suddenly lurched back to life.

Then there it was, that same voice from earlier, crackling over the radio.

" _Ich- Ichcheyka, segodnya ty umirayesh!_ "

Hawker knew what that meant like it'd been spoken in English. Becker gawked. <Y...you know Russian?>

But he was ignored. 

Then the mech's voice sounded over the radio. Deep, menacing. Full of venom.  _"Nyet. Ishcheyka vsegda zakanchivayet to, chto on nachinayet."_

Every spotlight on his body was activated then - two pairs on each shoulder, one on each side of his hips - and again, he plowed in. The robots fired indiscriminately, but their guns were still no match.  _BLAM BLAM BLAM_. Two more on the ground. The last one Hawker kicked into the snow, and tore it in half using his feet alone. It was a slow, arduous way to rip something apart, but as the metal groaned and shrieked, wiring ripped, and the thing spasmed underfoot, Hawker ground his own denta together behind that mask when the torso finally separated from the legs.

" _Po'shyol 'na hui!_ " the mech yelled. "Fuck you!"

Behind him approached the line of robots, their numbers already halved by the efforts of the MRAV, still working away on the exposed fuel cells. But the fight wasn't over just yet: the one Six had recovered, and the second, the first to hit the caisson, was moving again, though whether or not it would be able to stand again was something else. Hawker cursed - Russian in his head, English with his mouth, and dropped the pistol to the ground, disengaging the ammo feed.

<Hawker, what are you -??>

Not even the knife. Just a hand, open, ready to grab, to rend. Hawker wanted to feel death with his own haptic net again tonight. Fuck Becker and his trigger finger.

_**PFSHH** _

The missile launched before Becker even realized it, but Hawker was pure instinct right now. The BGM-71 lit up the scene for a second as it exploded forward, gaining speed with every impossible sliver of a moment that passed, headed straight for them. But it wasn't travelling fast enough yet - wouldn't for another 1.8 seconds. The big black hand  _SNATCHED_  it out of the air, struggling against its still-engaged propulsion, fighting its forward momentum with a fierce, guttural cry. "NNGH...!" With a shaking arm, Hawker  _turned_  the missile around and threw it BACK at the Six.

" _Nyet!!_ "

There were two explosions: one as the missile hit the first Six, and the second as the pilot inside was whisked violently away from his mortal coil and the machine picked up on the flat vitals. One right after the other. Boom boom.

Hawker was thrown off-balance again, but he knew to expect it this time. Before him stood the last HLX-6. Autocannon aimed, spooled.

<No,> Becker thought. <Naw naw no no no fuck no...!>

But an eruption of noise came from their NINE o'clock, and an instant later, a casing shreds open on impact with the remaining Six, and a second later, its gun is covered in beige goo. Flypaper.

"S-s...sorry 'bout the w-wait," came the quiet, rasping voice on the radio. One of Mendez's crew? Still alive? She panted, and it was obvious she was having a hard time taking a full breath.

Becker was speechless, but Hawker wasn't. "Take a rest, officer. I've got it now."

The final Six struggled, whirred impotently as he barrel of its cannon filled with the expanding foam. The mech's hands reached up, trying frantically to wipe the stuff away, but to no avail. It just got everywhere even more.

Hawker approached, realizing that the fire from the AKs had all but disappeared. He would have looked to check on Kim and Monroe - Becker wanted him to - but the mech had one thing on his mind. Still no knife. He didn't need it. Didn't want it.

With a vicious slam of his foot, the Six went down. He climbed on top of it, weighing it down just enough to get purchase on one of the arms and  _pull_. Pull until sparks flew, until fluids sprayed, and before long, until a limp arm hung in his grip. Hawker took that arm and he  _beat_  the Six.  _WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM!_  The torso dented again and again until the Russkie trash can barely resembled what it had even 10 minutes ago.

<Jesus Christ, Hawker..!>

Then he flipped the thing over with a kick, threw the arm. On its back was its core, humming with energy from a thick, shoddy battery pack. This was the prey now. Four months of mourning for Lee, four months of planning his vengeance. Four months of studying specs. He knew exactly where to grab. He raised up his good arm and SLAMMED it down against that armor, just to the side. Repeatedly, until the lip curled upwards at the seam, giving him something to grab. Then:  _CRRRRRREEEAA- **CRASH**_

Underneath, thick, hot conduits pulsed with energy. Life for whoever was inside. Hawker snatched at the end of that cable, ripped it from its mooring with a gush of electricity. The jolt ran up his arm, surged through his body, zapped his pilot, and fled into the earth. Below him, ripped and beaten, oozing and tangled, was the HLX-6, power to its cockpit completely disabled. The mech gave its pilot a good 2 minutes before he suffocated to death.

[CORE TEMPERATURE: 345C (HOLDING)]  
[COOLANT TEMPERATURE: 305C (HOLDING)]  
[SENSOR ARRAYS: PRIMARY: GREEN. SECONDARY: YELLOW. TERTIARY: YELLOW.]  
[HAPTIC NET: YELLOW: 78%]  
[POWER DRAW: COMBAT (315.9 MWH)]

"Tsung, how're we looking?" Hawker asked. His voice betrayed his exhaustion. Even now, his mind came back to one thing: "Chris needs to get back ASAP. You'd better tell me we've got a clear route!"

[COCKPIT TEMPERATURE: 31C (HOLDING)]  
[COCKPIT AIR CIRC: ENGAGED.]

[SYNC RATE: 69%]  
[PILOT: STABLE]  
[PILOT VITALS: HR: 122BPM BP: 139/82MMHG RR: 25BMP TEMP: 37C]

[DAMAGE: 61%]  
[PATCHING: NEEDED.]  
[ALL SYSTEMS: YELLOW (HOLDING)]

 

* * *

 

 Tsung had watched from the moment underwater Hawker had reported the presence of an HLX-6. She'd wanted to track down the other groups of robots for the second task force. But there had been orders.

  
"Repeat, did you say a  _fresh_  HLX-6 in Wolf Lake?" came the command room operator's voice. In the background, the other individuals feeding into the overlay of the city could be overheard.  
  
"Affirmative. No visual yet, it's under the surface still."  
  
"Rodger, marking up now, stand by." There was an inaudible shout in the background. "Sergeant's orders are you to keep your drone over the lake until the HLX-6 is contained."  
  
And so that's just what she had done. She'd watched as Big Nine walked out of the churning waters with the hLX-6 over his head and threw it  _through_  the concrete casson. She watched as it face off against two more, reporting them in as well. That got Kole on the line with her.  
  
"Three HLX-6s?! And 192 foot soldier robots? This is a damned invasion!"  
  
"Yes Sir. Make that one six, Nine just ripped the pilot out of one."  
  
"GOOD! Tell those two end this. We could stop this march at the lake!"  
  
"Sir, he RIPPED the enemy pilot-- What kind of equipment is this?"  
  
"Tsung?" came Kole's worried reply.  
  
She had to put cole on hold Kole to warn Chris. Maybe he heard. Hawker asked for another ten seconds, ten he didn't get.   
  
The taser fired, and she thought she just watched Big Nine die.  
  
But then the mech  _kept going!_  It dropped the other HLX-6 on the first. Swapped pilots and kept going.  
  
Her drone moved a few hundred feet in the air before it was all over.  
  
"Tsung?" It was Kole, he'd re-patched up to her.  
  
"All HLX-6s decimated. At least 160 ground troops destroyed. Celn is critically injured, Big Nine is injured, and Becker is trying to pilot him Sir."  
  
"Check their route back to 42. I want Nine back in his gantry on repairs incase we need him again."  
  
"Aye sir."  
  
On the map, the destructive red wave died. Cheers went up as the final group got taken down by the second task force. Now they just had to deal with ordinary people. People out of their minds on drugs people out of their minds because their implants assumed control.  
  
"Have the second task group rendezvous with Big Nine, bring them all in. We'll restock and redeploy as much as we can." Kole ended the call to the drone pilot, feeling an intense relief. Big NIne had done in 10 minutes what they wouldnt' needed the army for. As the updates went out, he knew the Mayor would be breathing a BIG sigh of relief.  
  
\---  
  
_"Tsung, how're we looking? You'd better tell me we've got a clear route!"_  
  
"Should be clear, only the reds were this far south. Going to check now." THe drone angled and sped up, soon slipping out of direct sight.   
  
Becker felt adrenaline coursing through him, relief. And fear. Hawker sat at just 40% functionality, and had used his bare hand to destroy the same enemy that'd taken him and Davidson out just a few months ago. Christ.  
  
"Hey, can I get a hand over here?" came Mendez's voice.   
  
The MRAV move over to where the less-damaged tank lay, it's right side obliterated. THe turret seemed to be in some kind of order, and the injured agent struggled out of the top hatch. She had fashioned a crude sling for her right arm and was favoring her left leg as she sat on the surface of her tank. A second man came out, blood covering his face and chest, he held a massive wad of cotton over his right eye. Once he'd gotten down, he used his free hand to aid Mendez down.  
  
"Where's your third?" asked Lana, already dropping the back hatch.  
  
"She didn't make it. The blast shoved some of our side armor right through her chest. We had to hand crank the turret." Mendez bitterly responded. "Good thing those fuckers are dead. Remind me to buy Celn.."  
  
Chris's unconscious and injured body lay in the rear, the metal rods jutting from his pilot suit. He'd gone pale and he'd been wedged across the floor in the stretcher at an odd angle.  
  
"..oh fuck!"  
  
Greg turned and looked at them from the gunner's seat. "Don't just stand there and gawk! Get your asses in seats so we can get the fuck back to the precinct!"  
  
Mendez and Simmons sat on opposite sides, using their feet to held hold the stretcher in place. The moment the tailgate lifted up the MRAV started rolling back down the street, intent on taking the same path that'd gotten them there. It smells bad with the rookie stewing. "What happened to him? He stinks and.. those rods?"  
  
"Didn't you guys see?" asked Greg, feeding a new belt into the browning, just in case.  
  
"Nothing after that missile hit." Simmons sighed, exhausted. "We caught on fire, Had to put it out, get something for my face and her arm. But they time we even had the turret pointing the right direction, it was just that little bit left and a whole lot of scrapped mechs."  
  
  
"It was amazing! Nine and Chris just fucked them up! Like, it took seconds!"  
  
Mendez leaned down, checking the rookie's pulse. He hand one and his breath spilled softly onto her hand. He's still with us, Jesus; I can smell him!" It was the second time today she'd inhaled the scent of burning flesh.  
  
"Yeah. SOme kind EMP weapon? Not sure exactly what, but it put it's hand on Nine and then electricy spilled everywhere. Guess it stabbed into the cabin. Becker's in the hotseat right now."  
  
There was a long moment of quiet. Mendez held onto an overhead rail as the MRAV jostled. "Guess he's happy now."  
  
A mile passed by before Lana tried to lighten the mood. "So, did any of you bet on Celn making it this far?"  
  
\---  
  
Becker was not happy. You didn't pilot Hawker. You hung on for the ride and pushed buttons like a good bitch when the AI told you too. There was no freedom, you couldn't feel anything, and the black and white vision?? Seriously? Ugh. Maybe some of it is the 60% damage across the systems. As they trudged down the street, the second task force filled up behind them. All six of those vehicles made it, their chatter showing up on one of the many feeds that kept filling his visual space.  
  
"Looking good Captain!" "Saw what you did, glad you're on our side!" "I'll get you and Celn a ber, he can drink yours." "FUCK YEAH! WE DID IT BOYS!" All cheering the name of the Mech. Not him! He deserved credit too! He'd helped!  
  
"THe BIG NIIIIIIINE! Niner! Ninerahrino! You did it, saved us all from a world of Hurt Boss!" Fucking Steve.  
  
\---  
  
"You're clear, watch the ruined platoons of soviet bots on your way in. I think you might have just ended any enemy combatants in the southern part of the city. Just got the gang violence and the splicers uptown now." reported Tsung.  
  
"How is that going?" groused Becker, hoping that Hawker would at LEAST transmit his voice.  
  
"Gangs, FEH! Water cannons and sonic dispersal is keeping them down. Most of them are already trying to find other ways around or are disappearing. Either way, we win." She relayed, being safe in 42 let her have an ear to all ongoing events.  
  
"And the spliced? What about those sorry people?" asked Lana, her worry felt by all. Of everything that'd happened, those citizens had it the worst. Your own body betraying you!   
  
"SOP, just.. on a BIG scale." Tsung answered. Already 42 was in view, she'd get her drone charging and take a breather. Maybe bring cookies to medical.  
  
In the MRAV, Mendez whistled as she looked at her long-time partner. "Just let them run amok? Let the freaks go nuts until they run out of power? That MANY people?"  
  
Simmons shrugged. "City power is down. They'll probably run out in three hours with that kind of activity. Maybe less if they're really going nuts."  
  
Mendez wrinkled her nose, watching as the metal tines bounced and shook on Chris's body. "Then what, they eat each other?"  
  
"Fuck I hope not. Either way, give it a day an not one will have enough juice left to fight off the cold."  
  
\---

  
The crowd nervously cheered their return. Perhaps word had gotten around? More photos of Big Nine, the mech dragging as it entered the station. Becker's ego at least got a tiny pat. If his back wasn't aching, he'd have tried to stop for a photo op.   
  
Hawker and 301 were the first down the elevator into the motor pool. THe MRAV drove right to it's bay, where a nurse and a stretcher were waiting. Chris got pulled out and transferred, the nurse started an IV before sending the automated conveyance off. Chris's little body had a good foot of white sheet above and below; and it dodged around other people and Colburn's cart as it made a beeline for the elevator. In two minutes he was on his way up.  
  
Already the big lifts kept working, continuously bring up and down supplies and vehicles.  
  
"Holy hell Hawker! I give you your body back and you trash it in less then an hour?" Colburn tried to defuse the burning problem with humor. Her body language, her tone said it all. Right now, she didn't blame the Deep Field 2 for what'd happened.  
  
Becker's voice echoed out from one of the holes in the cockpit. WHy wouldn't anyone mention how great he'd been! He's saved the day, He'd risked being on foot around the mechs. Fuck, that's how Lee had died! "Do ya think you could maybe make some more room in here? I know Celn's a runt but come on! Now that he's toast you're gonna need this seat to take MY big boots. 'sides, Hawker and I get along perfect, shoulda SEEN us killing russian bots!"

 

* * *

 

 Hawker hung onto the lift's overhead support beam and all but staggered out into the motor pool. He dripped fluids all over the floor like a clogged rain gutter as he walked and his busted arm was still held tightly across his occupied chest. He could feel Becker squirm uncomfortably inside.  
  
Colburn ran up to him as he approached with his tech team close behind her. "Holy hell Hawker! I give you your body back and you trash it in less then an hour?" She gawked, looking him over, trying t get in a quick assessment before hooking him up. See what she'd be up against here.  
  
"Three Sixes," he rumbled. "Two with modified BGM-71 antitank missile batteries. If it wasn't me, who the  _hell_  would it have been? The National Guard isn't even out there yet."   
  
She exhaled her stress sharply, then gestured for Hawker to get up into his alcove. "It's going to be OK, Big Nine. Just..."  
  
The mech's optics were on the #301 MRAV, though. A nurse and a medical droid were transferring Chris's limp body -  _one, two, three, LIFT!_  - from the litter to the gurney and they quickly got to work attaching an oxygen mask and cutting a hole in that expensive suit to find the vein in his arm for fluids. He caught a snippet of their conversation as they rushed over to the elevator while the nurse took his vitals. "...Red Cross gets here fast with that blood!"  
  
Hawker had taken his vitals. The boy was going into shock. His hand balled into a fist almost strong enough to dent his own palm.  
  
"Do ya think you could maybe make some more room in here? I know Celn's a runt but come on! Now that he's toast you're gonna need this seat to take MY big boots. 'sides, Hawker and I get along perfect, shoulda SEEN us killing russian bots!" said Becker, completely oblivious.  
  
That was the last straw. The mech couldn't take this anymore right now. He knelt down, good hand bracing the floor as he forcibly ejected his pilot. Neurospace tore open as the interface array abruptly retracted, the harnesses peeled away, and with a cry of pain and confusion, Lieutenant Cory Becker tumbled out onto the floor of the motor pool, moaning and clutching at his neck.  
  
"What the  _fuck_ , Hawker!" he shouted, hissing and panting his agony. "Fuck...!"  
  
Colburn gasped, rushed over to him, helping him up. "Thule, help him upstairs!"  
  
"Yes, ma'am!" The tech finished getting Becker to his feet, holding the pilot's arm around his shoulders for support as he swayed and moaned.  
  
Hawker thought that the lieutenant was down for the count, but apparently not: "Not... not even a goddamn  _thank you!_ " he shouted over his shoulder before boarding the elevator.  
  
The Chief turned back to him, eyes staring daggers. "You seriously want to put  _one more person_  in medical tonight, Hawker?" she barked. "Overtax our resources every  _more?_  That was completely unnecessary!"  
  
"He was trying to ride me like a motherfucking  _show horse_ ," he boomed right back as he stood up again. "Meanwhile, Chris..." The mech's voice faded to a growl. "I swear to god, Colburn, if he dies..."  
  
She studied his face with knowing. Her gloved hands hovered in the air, waiting for him to finish. Hawker always finished.  
  
"If he dies you might as well junk me." The words that came out were weighted by a tremendous bitter anxiety. Despair. He couldn't keep his fist still, he had to hit something. A support column sufficed - BOOM! - and chips of concrete went flying. " _This is the second time I didn't get to say goodbye!_ " But the kid's last words echoed in his foreprocessors, lighting up his memory networks like a candle flame in the dark.  
  
_I love you._  
  
Two more personnel carriers drove in, the last two. The motor pool was abuzz with congratulations, excitement, wonder, and slaps on the back. Every now and then, though, someone would look up at Hawker - their Big Nine - and their smile would fade as they stared, until they turned back toward their comrades and make their way toward the elevator. They had no idea. Not one of them.  
  
The mech hefted himself over to the maintenance slab, settling himself into the gantry as the automatic hookups parted his armor and sunk in with a symphony of whirs and clicks and hums. Colburn stepped over to a series of large diagnostic screens as the second tech readied their tools.  
  
"Permission to mount the small body, ma'am," he said, staring straight ahead.   
  
Colburn looked up from the reports flooding in from his #9081, over to the charging and storage booth where the little black and white frame had sat, peacefully, untouched, during this entire encounter. Then she looked back up to him, then to the screens again. "Hawker, I need to run diagnostics on your entire system, especially after Chris -"  
  
" _Please,_  Sarah."  
  
She froze, and a cold sweat passed over her for some reason. The DF2 had  _never_  spoken her first name before. Not once in 8 years. The sound of it on his lips was chilling, somehow. Startling. She recalled the Russian she'd heard him speak over the radio, how commanding he'd sounded when he spoke that language. It was a similar sensation now, though for different reasons. Complex, conflicting reasons. Colburn had met Ishcheyka. She thought she'd put the Bloodhound down, but it was coming back like a weed. Maybe there was  _never_  any separating the two. Maybe a DF2 install could never be truly wiped; maybe thinking that it was even possible was just another chapter in the book of human hubris.  
  
Who  _was_  Hawker? She was beginning to understand that she didn't really know anymore. He was doing awful things to Chris, things that might've been better suited to a black site in the icy hills around Lake Baikal. But right now he wanted nothing more than to be at his pilot's side. Lee's death had devastated him - that was real. Losing another pilot in less than a year so traumatically? His horror now was real too. Colburn didn't know all of him, but she  _did_  know that he gave a damn.  
  
"Granted," she nodded, spoke quietly. Hawker offlined his sensor nets, his optics immediately, settling back against the gantry with the entirety of his tired, battered weight as he surely began the download process. "And Hawker?"  
  
His mouth still moved. "Ma'am?"  
  
"Don't call me by my first name ever again."

 

* * *

 

 Cory Becker felt good about venting his frustration. He is tired of fighting Hawker, and the damned mech needed to show his next pilot some  _respect!_  Then with a surge of frustration it all went sideways. The next thing he knew, ge is laying on the concrete floor in pain! Fuck! His everything hurt, his nerves are on fire and what felt like liquid agony pouring from his implant. "What the  _fuck_ , Hawker!"  
  
"Thule, help him upstairs!" Colburn barked. The tech winced, then got Becker onto his feet, one arm on his shoulders; carrying the tall pilot out of the room.  
  
It was only once they were on the elevator that Thule felt relived. "You're lucky."  
  
Becker hisses, touching at the implant like it was 100 degrees, panting and whining softly. "Lucky? AHHH! FUck man.. ow.. shit..."  
  
Thule nodded. THe elevators were moving -quick- today, the downside was that when you got to your floor they'd bob and you had to wait for it to settle before the doors would open. Medical is busy as hell, and the dropped becker on one of the chairs where all the other wounded had been brought. Blood, broken limbs, lacerations surrounded the aching pilot. "Lucky Big Nine didn't turn you into hamburger. What were you thinking, saying shit like that?"  
  
Cory unzipped the top of his uniform, his nerves burning as the pair of ejection spread. Going bare-chested, his eyes got wet with tears from the increasing agony. "Dude! You weren't there! I saved us all after Celn tapped out."  
  
Thule looked like he wanted to respond, then didn't. He just held up both hands and walked away.  
  
\---  
  
"Don't call me by my first name ever again." Colburn command.  
  
Her fingers quickly tapped over the consoles, initiating the transfer between bodies. At her side another tech busily began the diagnostics. "Are we still going to try and patch up 9081 Ma'am?"  
  
Sarah stepped back and turned, looking up at the monster that hung in it's gantry. She needed to go over the black box with a fine-toothed comb. She wanted to inspect every moment that'd happened since the hatch sealed behind Chris. "It depends on how bad the damage is. We don't even have a backup now." She'd HEARD what Becker had said. There wasn't any discipline she could do that'd match the days of agony the cocky pilot is about to endure from ejection. THey had a damn good idea of what lay ahead thanks to Chris's trailblazing. "THe only A-Classes we have left are up on drone duty; and I'm not even going to suggest feeding our eyes into this man-eater."   
  
She rubbed her temple as the transfer neared 50%. THe glove left a dark greasy smudge. "If the 9081 chassis can't melee, then we can't use it until Celn is able to get in the cockpit. And I can SEE enough fluids leaking make me worried."  
  
\---  
  
Medical 12-B felt displeased. THe wonderful rubber pilot suit on patient Celn no longer read out vitals, most of it's internal circuitry had been destroyed. Taking the right at the elevator, it drove on it's tracks behind the stretcher until they both reached operating booth 5. The room smelled of fresh antiseptic, having just finished it's self-cleaning cycle three minutes ago. 12-B maneuvered the scanner in place; then it produced a pair of cutters and started to shorten the long metallic quills that jutted from the human. Dropping them onto a nearby stainless steel table, it marvelled at the altitudes of the weapon that had done the damage. 11 entry wounds, 11 exit wounds.  
  
Five minutes told it what it needed to know. THe strands would be best pulled through. With the patient unconscious, it introduces nitrogen into the air stream and got to work. Carefully it had to manipulate the arm into the position it was in when the silvery shard had gone in, then grasp the spike and pull it through the exit wound. With the perfect calm of the surgeon it is, 12-B extracted the remains of the Taser. It then re-scanned, then moved onto the next wound when satisfied.  
  
<12-B here. What is the status on the O- blood? Celn requires more, his BP is continuing to fall.>   
One of the supply drones indicated back <At least a 10 minute delay before a shipment arrives. Clen does not have recorded allergens to artificial plasma.>   
12-B would frown if it had a face. These conditions, really! The army had far superior logistics, if only it were back in Vietnam. <Very well. Bring three units and start Patient Celn on one.>  
  
\----  
  
At 100%, Hawker re-woke in his small frame. Colburn locked the transfer system down and took a few steps over, working with her tech as they sorted over the mech. She began reading out the damage reports, thinking to herself aloud. "Left arm and shoulder gone. THey'll need full rebuilds. Might be able to patch up the damage in the legs. And.. Captain Hawker! What happened to your haptic system? It's completely offline?"

 

* * *

 

 When Hawker onlined in the human-sized frame, optics shuttering open and haptic net engaging, he didn't wait for Colburn to give him the go-ahead. He unlatched himself, disconnecting from the thick plugs attached to the thing's spine, and surged out of the charging booth, ready to claw his way up to medical if he had to. There were errors here and there - to be expected after suffering such trauma to his quantum systems without properly repairing them before downloading into another chassis - but he didn't give one WHIT of a damn.  
  
But Colburn did stop him, and she stopped him with a look. The Mama Bear.  
  
"There's cameras in there," was all she said before going back to her work, brow furrowed.  
  
The now-smaller mech murmured: "I know, Chief." Then took off toward the elevator, passing Thule just as he was stepping out.   
  
"What the..!"  
  
But the doors closed and Hawker punched the button marked with a big, fat  _M_. The plastic cracked.  
  
\---  
  
Hawker had to wait in the lobby like the rest of the rank-and-file. Chris was still in surgery. He sat down in a chair like one of the grunts, and slumped. His exhaustion, even in this undamaged, fully-charged chassis, was catching up to him. He needed to clear his caches, needed to debug, needed to let his systems sort through all the scattered junk data and make sense of just what happened tonight.  
  
But not now.   
  
Hawker - Big Nine, Captain Hardass, Chicago's 'Long, Metal Arm of the Law' - had a vigil to keep.  
  
Five minutes, ten minutes. He looked around the room. Officers were holding ice packs to their heads, gauze to lacerations. Somebody was sweating buckets, panting uncontrollably, as they clutched at a gunshot wound to their arm. Their partner reassured them quietly, insistently, checked the red towel here and there. Hawker caught that it was a grazing, at least. Deep, but no lead had technically penetrated tissue.  
  
Then there was Becker. He was icing his neck in the corner, in a cold sweat too. Hawker's yellow eyes met his bleary blue ones, and the expression on the lieutenant's face was one of bitterness.  _This isn't over,_  it said.  
  
_No it's not._  
  
\---  
  
It was an agonizing half hour later before the mech was shown into the ward to where Chris would be... staying.   
  
Everywhere, everything was white, like the clean room in Rockford. If he had an olfactory on this body, he would have smelled the sting of blood and iodine in the air. Plastic. Latex. That peculiar odor of medication and skin and sterilized linens so unique to places like this.  
  
"He is here," said the medical hospitality droid, extending its three-fingered hand toward a door half-open. The lights were dimmed inside, and it was quiet aside from the gentle sigh of slowly inflating and deflating leg circulation wraps, the beeping of the heart monitor, the faint whirring of the IV drip feed. Behind him, the droid closed the door.  
  
Chris was covered in white. A thick slab of blankets had been laid over him from chest to feet, and everywhere there was bandages. His face would have looked peaceful if he didn't look dead.  
  
But he wasn't... at least for now. Hawker stood and watched as the young man's chest rose and fell slowly, steadily. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity.  
  
"For fuck's sake," he whispered and pulled up a chair to the bedside, all but collapsing into it.  
  
Chris looked so small, now. And not in a good way. An erotic way. Just... a sad way. A  _gross_  way.  _Does not compute._  
  
It occurred to him, again, that  _somebody did this_. Somebody  _designed that thing_ , and somebody  _bought_  it, and somebody  _used_  it. On this  _kid_.  
  
_His_  kid.  
  
Hands fisted and -  
  
No. No hitting things here. This was a place to be gentle. Quiet. Patient.  
  
Hawker could be patient.  
  
There was no beating this anyways, he realized. No enemy here he could squeeze to death, no one he could terrorize for information, no target to unload a clip into. Big and fully loaded or small and simple, it was dawning on Hawker what it truly was to be powerless in the face of such an adversary as uncertainty. All he could do was  _wait_.  
  
He reached out with a metal hand and touched the back of Chris', avoiding the thick needle stuck there. The skin radiated an unnatural, medicated warmth. "I'm not leaving," he said. "I'm not leaving until you do."


	20. Enter the Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the new chassis, and where Chris is finally released from medical.

At 5% charge, Hawker had convinced Colburn to plug him into the wall up here using one of the 50 amp outlets. It was just enough to keep up with his power draw, but it's not like he was going anywhere anyways. For three days he sat there, a thick cable connecting him to the wall like a chain. Every time a droid entered to check on the patient, he asked the only question he had.  
  
"How's he doing?"  
  
"Patient Celn is stable, captain."  
  
\---  
  
On Thursday night, Wen brought in a foil-wrapped paper plate full of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Hawker didn't know what Chris liked most, and that frustrated him to the point of anger. The young analogue pilot set the plate on the countertop, wary of the brooding mech in the corner, but she stayed a while. At some point, her hand wound up on his shoulder, and Hawker met her gaze. Even in this body, sitting, he was still at her shoulder.  
  
"He looks OK," she murmured, nodding to herself. "I've... I've seen folks recover from worse."  
  
Hawker had something surly and defeatist to say to that, but he didn't. He kept quiet, reached up to put his hand on her shoulder as well. It was even smaller than Chris'. Slighter. He noticed her breath hitch when he touched her, but after a moment she gave into the touch and the two looked on in silence for a while longer.  
  
A few minutes later, he was alone with his boy again; his only company the soft chorus of beeping, sighing, and whirring.   
  
Waiting.

 

* * *

 

 

Thanksgiving went without change. Wen had stayed for almost an hour, leaning in to the robot. "He'll be up soon. I'll ask if there's room a fridge for his dinner."  
  
Two days later 23-E rolled into the room. Unlike the other medical droids, this one possessed four arms with those three fingered hands. It had the same green surface, chrome hydraulics and white surfaces as the des. It's lower half also contained bulkier storage. It paused at the sight of Hawker, opening up a wireless communication.  
  
<I am 23-E, here to service Officer Celn's cortical implant and interface. Please exit the room. You may stand in the doorway.>  
  
Hawker had seen the remains of that connection when Chris had gotten a sponge bath. Those he could assist with. The rook's pillow kept getting black flakes, little burrs of metal and the damaged circuitry had crumbled away. Pulling the plug on his charging cable, he walked the four steps to the doorway, turned, and watched on his constant vigil.   
  
<Thank you. As you are a concerned party, I would like to inform you of the concerns of this situation.>  
  
It carefully rotated chris onto his side, exposing the normally flat metallic disc, with it's dimple and edges. THe tiny center point where the connective spike entered was .. black.  
  
<Interesting. The skin around the implant is only mildly burned.>   
  
One of the left hands touched what should be solid carbon fire. The finger dimpled, drawing out four inches of burned material.  
  
<Ah. The discharge DID enter the implant. Would you say your pilot is lucky, Captain Hawker?>  
  
It broke out a socket wrench, holding the main disc firmly as it unscrewed the main locknut. Brrrt Brrt Brrt Brrt! More damaged pieces, 23-E began dropping the parts into one of those light-pink barf trays.  
  
A pair of ring pliers, inserted three inches into the boy's neck hole, turning, then sliding out a cylinder the size of the bottom part of a red-bull can.   
  
It produced a small vacuum and hoovered up the many bits of debris. Then it places the tube into the metallic neckhole.  
  
The sounds of hundreds of tiny pieces being sucke dup echoled in the medical room. One of the many hands help up the cylinder for examination.  
  
<Minimal scoring.>   
  
<No.>  
  
<No, not lucky?>  
  
Chris didn't catch breaks. He caught life's punches to the face. <Not. Lucky.> There is no use holding back, Hawker prepared to hear that the delicate spiderweb of interface wiring in the kid's spine and brain was slag.   
  
As it placed the part into the tray, 23-e swabbed out the remaining dusky and leaned down to examine. It's spare right hand lowered, retrieving a plastic-sealed box from the bulky lower half of the medical droid.  
  
<Then he saved it for this. There's no visible damage.>  
  
Removing the layers of packaging, it installed a whole new mechanical implant and used a torque wrench to secure the locking nut in place. It put the smooth cover over the rest, preforming a fluid-backed seal to cap it off.  
  
It placed an interface tester on the plug, finished cleaning up the mess and engaged.  
  
THe twenty minutes it's white glowing eyes were dim were the longest Hawker could remember.  
  
<Full unconcious connectivity. I was able to read some subconscious through. He was tasting with his hearing.>  
  
It put Chris back in place, checking his tubes and IV before carrying the garbage out, while HAwker returned to the boy's side.  
  
\---  
  
Another damned day. Around two in the afternoon, Chris had stirred. Just a slight movement, fingers on the bedding, a turn of the head. The medical androids had plugged in a low-power interface into the kid's now running implant. It helpfully showed the main readout Hawker knew so well from his own internal systems. THe reading had moved off the baseline. A blip.  
  
\---  
  
Colburn looked over the new arrivals. Not personnel, Mechs. There were a good fifteen boxes of various sizes and shapes. "And what am I supposed to do with these?" She asked the grinning member of the army's logistics division.   
  
"Well ma'am, the Brass are mighty impressed with what they saw you do with a hand-me-down HLX-9 with a bum AI and a pilot with a month under his belt. These are a stack of pretty new units, the kinda stuff that we don't have the support for but you might be able to use." The man had taken a selfie with the partially disassembled vanguard in the background.  
  
Sarah narrowed her eyes. Some of the crates had tags that indicated their contents were less then a year old. "I don't buy it. What's wrong with them?"  
  
"Nothing ma'am. After this, I don't think we will be out of the city for a year. There's a ton to rebuild and clean up. The armed forces have been deployed at home, and we aren't going to be back on base for a long time."  
  
Colburn sighed. "Alright. Where do I sign?"  
  
As she thumbed the pad, two more of the young army men were busy getting in on the selfie action. EVERYONE was slapping her back now. Telling her how she'd done the impossible, and enabled Big Nine to save the city. Kole was getting hints that he might get a promotion to City Hall. And the two reasons the red army was in the hands of the FBI, CIA and HS were both up in medical.  
  
She needed to get the Deep Field 2 out of it's funk. It's been there, doting on the greenhorn for a week. Taking utter care of it's pilot. Maybe.. maybe it had finally learned.   
  
Maybe.  
  
\---  
  
Another 18 hours of intermittent activity. Hawker had stared at Chris sleeping for so long, when those green eyes were open and lock on his faceplate it was a shock! THe soft, pink lips worked slow to make out the words. "boss? .. did.. we .. get. 'em ..?"

 

* * *

 

 

"Kole," came Chief Colburn's voice from the other side of his office door. She knocked twice and opened up anyway. "I'm gonna do something and I need you to talk me out of it."  
  
The sergeant looked up from his work - just because they'd narrowly avoided a WW4, didn't mean that the city's crime suddenly decided to take a vacation; no, to the contrary - and the first thing he noticed were the deep bags under her eyes. It'd been an entire week of 16 hour days for her, he knew, and after all this was over he was going to encourage her take some time off. Maybe she'd take it, maybe she wouldn't. The two of them were more like AIs than not: the pair would probably never retire, working until they dropped dead.  
  
She sat down in the chair opposite, looking like she weighed twice as much as she did. A metal thermos steaming with coffee was set on the desk with a  _klunk_  and she bent forward at the middle to rub at her eyes.  
  
Kole raised a brow, setting aside the datapad. "Sounds like you're gonna do it anyways."  
  
The hands at her eyes wandered up to her scalp, rubbing there too as she stared at her knees. "I'm gonna give Big Nine the Ares-class personnel drone." Experimental technology that worked, but the military was having trouble finding its niche in a post-war world... and justifying the price tag to Albany. 42 was given exactly one in that shipment of mech tech.  
  
"Wait, let me get this straight," Kole said, straightening up in his chair. Colburn's hands went to her neck now and began massaging the stiff muscles. "A month ago you wanted nothing more than to separate those two, and now you're going to give Hawker unfettered access to the entire station,  _including_  Chris."  
  
She heaved a frustrated sigh. "Aside from the short battery life on the current chassis, he already  _has_  that."  
  
"Then what's the problem?"  
  
Colburn sat up straight too. "The Ares drone stands at 6'10"...  _before_  lacing up the size 22 BDU boots. Its 450 pounds. It can dead lift a  _Harley_ , punch through 4 inches of concrete, and take caps without even  _denting_."  
  
The sergeant cocked his head. "Sounds like Hawker to me."  
  
"Of course it does!" she finally exclaimed. "Kole, he's going to abuse whatever liberties we give him at this point, I just know it. He's going to  _keep_  doing stuff to that kid. At least the chassis that we have him in now doesn't have nearly the same output. He has to come down to the motor pool to charge for 6 out of every 24 hours, or he stays plugged into the wall. He could barely lift 200 pounds with that thing on a full charge if his life depended on it." Colburn sighed again. "You don't... you don't know what I know, Kole. You don't know the things he  _did_." Her hands, he noticed, were beginning to shake. Maybe from the exhaustion, maybe from the caffeine, maybe from the worry, or maybe from all three.  
  
"Why do I need to talk you out of giving him the Ares, then?"  
  
"Check your messages."  
  
Sergeant Kole picked up his pad again, and saw that there was indeed a message from her. It was a video clip. Of... CCTV footage from Chris' room? Yeah, it was Chris, alright, and Hawker in that smaller body, sitting in the chair. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was looking at a  _timelapse_ , at which his brows pressed together and his eyes widened the slightest bit. An hour passed by every 4 seconds, and he watched with not a little surprise as Hawker remained sitting in that chair, still as stone, for the entire 2-day clip. He moved only when someone entered the room, and afterwards resumed his solitary watch.  
  
"Gods, Gideon, just  _look_  at him."  
  
"You know," he began, replaying the footage again and watching it with fascination. "If I were to pretend that mech were a flesh-and-blood person instead of an AI with a chip on its shoulder... I'd say that were some kinda  _love_ , Sarah."  
  
She balked. "You're kidding me, right?  _Love?_  You think Nine has it in him to  _love?_ "  
  
Kole shrugged, set the pad down. "He loved Lee."  
  
"Yeah, like a  _big brother._  A  _mentor._ "  
  
"Maybe he's found himself a little brother now."  
  
She threw her hands up into the air. "Dammit, Kole, do you even  _hear_  to yourself?? That's disgusting!"  
  
"Do  _you_  hear  _yourself?_ " he firmly retorted. "Call it whatever you want, Chief. Brotherly love, The Bond,  **whatever**. But what's obvious to me is that those two care about each other, and that short of issuing a  _restraining order_  there's not going to be anything we can do to keep them apart." He jerked down his white button-up shirt as it had started to gather at the armpits. "And don't you  _dare_  try and tell me that there was no love between Lee and that machine."  
  
Colburn sat defeated. "I don't know anymore."  
  
"Yes you  _do_ , and I  _know_  you do because you've already decided to give Hawker the Ares regardless of what I said."  
  
Colburn's eyes studied the floor, the desk, her knees, her feet - anything but the sergeant - and they studied them for a long time. The room was silent. She reached for her coffee and took a long sip, then rose to her feet, nursing the drink with both hands. Was it just him or did those bags deepen even more?  
  
"You know this is gonna be the cure, right?" Kole said quietly. She still avoided looking at him for a few moments, then those tired eyes flicked in his direction. "The cure for Ichcheyka is going to be in making him vulnerable, Sarah. Making him  _human_. Lee took it upon himself to start that project 8 years ago. It would be doing a lot of people a disservice - here  _and_  in Siberia - if we didn't at least try to finish it."  
  
At last, Colburn nodded. And nodded some more. She looked out the window at the bleak, white blanket of winter that had settled on the Windy City, thinking. Or maybe just trying to stay awake.  
  
"I'll prep the Ares," she said, and headed out the door.  
  
\---  
  
Chris stirred at some point in the night, around 4am. His fingers twitched faintly, and he could see those eyes move behind the lids. Eventually, they fluttered open altogether, and Hawker was suddenly greeted by the only shade of green in the entire room. Chris looked around blearily, his mind working to piece together where he was for a few moments. Hawker's foreprocessors sprung to life and he jerked upright in that chair, but didn't rise. Not yet.  
  
Eventually Chris found him, and his words were quiet and broken:  _"Boss? .. did.. we .. get. 'em ..?"_  
  
The mech wished he had a mouth so the kid could see him smiling. "We sure did, kiddo. Gave 'em hell." The rest was surely details. As soon as Chris was out of here, he'd be briefed and debriefed six ways past Sunday.   
  
_Now_  he stood up from that damn chair, took the half-step needed to close the gap between him and the side of the bed, where he stood like he was back in the #9081. He reached out, slowly,  _carefully_ , to touch that cheek, giving a wide berth to the nasal cannula that hugged his face and disappeared behind his ear.  
  
"I'm... I'm glad you're back," came the stiff words. "Now just rest. There's no rush get back out there, got it?" A faint chuckle. "We're  _both_  in for repairs right now."

 

* * *

 

 

07-C observed the cameras as it rolled towards the recovery suites, feeling satisfying vindication. The medical betting pool had just cleaned up, having predicted with just one other participant that Celn would wake up in 7 days. Sure it was quite late on that 7th day, but as the rules clearly stated: 'If you don't like it, don't play.'  
  
The big pot on the final status of the pair, still wobbled on uncertainty.  
  
\---  
  
Chris hurt. His legs are propped up, some sort of weird thigh-high fabric boots that inflated with pulses of air. His right arm had a soft cast wrapped it, holding the wrist and elbow joint in a singe long line. Even just moving his eyes and talking is a herculean effort. His boss is at his side. Right there. Just moments ago he had been in the cockpit, getting stabbed. He remember the pair of the quills hitting him. It must have zapped them both. Then it all got kinda fuzzy. He remembered Hawker screaming for him.  
  
"good.." Swallowing hurt, his throat felt dry. "..you.. were .. here.." he smiled, head resting on the hand that held his face.  
  
07-C Rolled into the room. Standing on the opposite side of the bed, it deployed a number of tools and sensors as it read over the now-conscious form of the pilot. It did need Hawker to stand back.   
  
Those moments away, despite having spent so much time in the room, were torture. Chris is RIGHT THERE! And yet, even touching the wounded human would have to wait. Infernal waiting. Thirty minutes, a second scan that lasted over two hours before 07-C disengaged.  
  
"Officer Celn, you sustained serious physical injuries. You also have a brand new interface implant internals. THis means we will need to have you sit through the standard recovery period, followed by re-certification. I do not predict any deviation from your previous abilities."  
  
Despite everything he'd been through, THAT made the kid grin, and a pained chuckle come out of him. His good hand moved to rest on his ribs. "You.. mean I.. get to.."  
  
07-C is already resting the sealed box next to the IV stand, then it ran the new drip feed into the IV's extension port. "Affirmative."   
  
"yeaaaaay.."  
  
Chris closed his eyes, exhaling with a grin still pulling up on the corners of his mouth. After a few long moments, all the tension seemed to leave his body.  
  
"Normally after implantation, the newly altered human spends three days on painkillers, experience a state of lucid dreaming. This is vital to establishing the proper connections and allowing for nerve integration." It coupled the medical interface to the human, then engaged the program on the computer that sat in the wall. The display screens began showing odf imagines and an output of the continued activity.  
  
07-C Turned, arms colding around it's chest as it rolled out on it's tracks. "Try not to ask him too many questions. Your pilot is going to be high out of his mind for a few days."  
  
"...oh wow.. feels.. yeah..."  
  
A metal hand stroked over his cheek, pleased.  
  
\---  
  
It had been a week sense the attack on the USA. It had been a country-wide affair, not just Chicago. Up and down the midwest there had been various attempts at destroying the heart of the country. But the big cities got it the worst, the splicers, the sudden influx of cheap drugs. The Red menace had been a unique affair. But investigations had turned up a cargo ship stuffed with molds. Dyes. Programs. Had the HLX-6s gotten into the manufacturing plants, there was no doubt that thousands of the red mechs would have been swarming out across the country.  
  
And the steel mills were just across the lake. It would have been a disaster.  
  
Hawker had to get back down to charge up. Chris said he understood. And he could watch on the cameras. His boy would recover.   
  
There was something new waiting next to his little body's gantry. Something in it's own 9 foot gantry, the whole affair covered with a sheet of translucent plastic and a little red bow.  
  
Then people cropped out from his alcove, where the 9081 stood in pieces. Smiles. Techs, He saw Thule and Wen with smiles on their faces. Almost everyone looked extra tired, but also beaming with pleasure. Colburn is there too, and she didn't even look angry at him!  
  
"Captain Hawker, as your Chief Engineer I had good news and bad news. THe bad news is that your Vanguard HLX-9 chassis still has months of repairs before it is fully repaired and enhanced." Off to the far side of the alcove were stacks of crates, likely what'd be going into him until summer. Phones came out, got held up by smiling faces.  
  
"But your days of wandering around in -that- are over." She gestured at the small, damnably useless body that was usually used as a domestic robot. "I need you in something that can assist with repairs. The precinct needs you in something that can be useful while on duty." With a flourish, she pulled down the plastic.  
  
What looked out, seeming to broadcast authority with it's broad shoulders, is a new chassis. An  **Ares**! A glance at the shining brass plate on the custom-gantry informed the Captain that this is an Ares  _mark 3_! Already, he could pull up a dozen articles in Popular Science and American Rifleman about it.   
  
_"The mark 3, why you need 3 million haptic sensors in your drone!"_  
  
_"Ares continues to dominate, the new one will knock your socks off!"_  
  
_"Hyper accurate telemetric sighting, read about the mark 3's sightless sniping!"_  
  
_"At cost, the Ares three allows for drone style piloting on the ground! No more risking the lives of our nation's best!"_  
  
That last article pointed out how for the price of a single Ares, the marines could train 10 men and keep them for five years.  
  
The 6', 10" at the HEAD robotic shell menaced. THe 'ears' brought it up into the 7' 6" range. CLose enough to brush sprinkler heads. Broad enough that it'd fill a doorway. Chris on his toes would struggle to kiss that strong jawline.   
  
It had a jaw. Lips. Teeth! It had synthetic skin!  
  
"I have the drivers and the operating manual waiting for you. Are you ready to step into your new body, Captain Hawker?" Colbrun asked, a grin brightening up her tired face.

 

* * *

 

e'd been expecting a quiet morning down in the motor pool. He'd shut off so he didn't have to spend the next 6 hours thinking about how much he wanted to get back up into that room. He'd overtaxed the chassis as it was already. The fuel cells needed a proper charge or he'd kill 'em. A $2500 mistake.  
  
But when he existed the elevator, there was hubub. Commotion. He looked around, suspicious.  _Smiles_  on people's faces? Beside his repair gantry, a large squarish blob was covered in a tarp and presented proudly with a bow. The hell was this, a surprise birthday party? After a moment his eyes fell on Colburn and he walked up to her, nonplussed. Tired.  
  
"I rolled off the assembly line in  _August_ ," he said flatly. "The hell's all this?"  
  
"Captain Hawker, as your Chief Engineer I had good news and bad news."  
  
He cocked a brow plate and listened, still deeply skeptical of all the merry-making going on down here. But as she spoke, he began to put something together, and his yellow optics drifted over to the plastic just before it was tugged down to reveal...  
  
An  _Ares?_  Mark  _3_??  
  
The mech... gawked. It was a damn handsome, and even more deadly, piece of equipment. And it  _did_  have a face! Not white, but a smooth, stony gray that matched the pewter and gunmetal of the rest of the tank-build frame. Across one shoulder was screenprinted the sleek  _ARES_  logo in silver, all hard lines and sharp edges, and across the other, the familiar emblem featuring the rolling hills, standing Indian, and heraldic device of the Chicago PD.  _URBS UN HORTO. INCORPORATED 4TH MARCH 1837._  It wasn't the 9081, but it was still good. No, fuck that - it was better than good. He could have some of his old functionality while still being able to... go where Chris was able to go.  
  
"...Hawker?"  
  
He turned to Colburn, optics bright. "It'd be a goddamn  _honor_ , ma'am."  
  
  
\---  
  
  
The small crowd erupted into applause when the Ares stepped off that gantry and hit the concrete floor. Camera flashes caught the impressive curvature of his muscled armor, making him shine like an oiled bodybuilder. There were some whoops, some wolf-whistles -  _I see you, Jane!_  - murmurings and excited banter. Everyone crowded in to get a better look, to take a picture with him. Which he was happy to allow for now. It... felt good to be accepted by them again. This must mean they'd moved past their mistrust, right?  
  
"The downloads are on your server," Colburn said, standing closer to him than he remembered her doing in recent memory. Was he forgiven? What did all this  _mean_?  
  
It means he had their respect again. Now he just had to  _keep_  it.  
  
Her arm reached up to touch his immense shoulder, and he froze. "...Chief?"  
  
"It'll give you something to do while you wait for Chris to come around. Not a lot of action in hospital rooms."  
  
It dawned on him what she was trying to say, and he suddenly took both of her hands in his in a gesture of earnest thanks. "I don't know what to say, Chief." Then, an urge. A moment later, he found himself wrapping his arms around her, bent steeply around her much shorter frame. "Thank you." Her breath stopped and she started, but after a moment, Colburn let her arms wrap around his immense chest as best they could.  
  
"I think the future looks bright, Big Nine," she said quietly.  
  
\---  
  
With no charging needing to be done on the brand-new chassis, he headed straight back toward that elevator after a few more minutes of mingling and posing for photos, and beelined for the post-op ward. Only twice did the thick, stubby antennae on his helmet hit doorways that he didn't sufficiently duck into, but he'd get used to it.  
  
He  _definitely_  made sure to duck into Chris's room, though. He knocked on the doorframe gently as he strode in, and the boy in the bed stirred with a breathy groan. Hawker remained standing for now - he wasn't sure if the chair would hold his weight this time.  
  
"Got a surprise for you, kiddo..."

 

* * *

 

 

The Ares 3 chassis pulled away from Sarah Colburn, it's hands gently touching her shoulders before letting go. She watched as it posed and stood with the crowd, flexing like a classic strongman whole Jane got a selfie next to the bulging artificial muscles. The deep Field 2 acted so human, smiling as it said it's thanks and good-byes to the crowd.  
  
As it walked toward the elevator, she took careful note how it carried itself with pride. It's fingers extended into the air, able to feel the rush of air through them. It ducked getting into the lift, and when it turned for the button it seemed so confident. Pleased.  
  
Standing Tall.  
  
<God, please let this be the right decision.> Her kids had been at home for thanksgiving break when all hell had gone down. They still were there too, safe. Work and home tended to blend together for the chief engineer; even more so now. 'Mom, you're going to get us photos with him before we go back to school. Right?' No word on when school would start back up. The college had simply given everyone As and steadfastly maintained that school would start up in the spring; if enough teachers could be found.  
  
Four boys, each a year apart, all at the same University. At least their GPAs would get a bump up. She might drag them to 42 just to give them something to do. They wanted to met Chris as well. 'He's our age? Is he like us?' God, that'd killed her. THe thought of a 15 monster abusing one of her own.  
  
She'd gotten an edited version of Celn's youth from Costa. What he'd described had kept her up for two days straight. She'd never hugged her husband so much. And she knew what Hawker had been encouraged to do in Russia. Two broken minds, finding comfort with each other. She just hoped they could keep each other straight.  
  
Behind her, the small civilian chassis rested in it's charger, looking forlorn.  
  
\---  
  
The three monitors behind Chris's head displayed strange scenes and diagnostic readouts. He was giggling softly to himself,and he was looking toward the door even before Hawker appeared. There had been heavy footfalls coming.   
  
_"Got a surprise for you, kiddo..."_  
  
Chris's breath caught, but the tubes in his nose blasting air into his lungs ensured he'd keep breathing. In his drugged stupor he ogled the massive form openly, taking in the sight from thighs to the tips of the long ears. His eyes greedily feasted on the broad shoulders, the powerful arms and the built-in gauntlet styled hands.  
  
"Is it.. Christmas?" he asked, voice lifted with wonder. THe continuous automatic airflow made it hard for him to speak in more then a few syllables before having to pause between them. His good arm lifted up, hand gently ruching over the potent abdominals, the cut flanks that slipped down the the comparatively narrow hips. The rubber IV tugged against the back of his hand as he touched the rounded groin. Resting his hand back in the sheets, he blinked tears away and lifted his chin upward so he could look at that handsome face.  
  
And what a face! Multiple optics that glowed Hawker-Yellow. A strong brow, and even stronger chin! Large supple lips with teeth. He guessed a tongue as well; and the voice. Finally a small frame that could carry the proper resonance of the 15 foot vanguard chassis. It is a long look-over.  
  
On the screens behind him, the constantly flowing landscapes and city streets now featured variations of the Areas Chassis within them. Left to right, the screens were the New image to be fed in, the read image, and the exit image with the result. A new one avery twenty seconds. Right now, to Chris, the bed he was in existed in an ever-changing environment with a single door in the background. It was a joke among pilots about how the best part of being a scabbard was the state-sponsored trip.  
  
"You look per.. fect." there came a chuckle. "Missing.. some parts.." The effort of being conscious dragged on thim then and he shut his eyes, still smiling.  
  
"Better not.. be a dream."

 

* * *

 

 

He was cute like this, Hawker decided. Precious.  
  
And... helpless. Truly.  
  
_"Is it... Chrismas?"_  
  
The mech chuckled, stepped closer. "You haven't been out  _that_  long." Chris' hand sloppily ran over his new form, delighting in the textures, the hard curves, the tiny seams, the shape and power of the muscle facsimiles. Hawker's hips tilted the slightest bit forward as the kid's fingers trailed lower, tracing around the modest bulge of the smooth, featureless codpiece. His haptic net took  _definitive notice_  of the touch, but his Vanguard-coded homonculous shell didn't know what to do with the inputs.  _Again._  He was forced to dump most of the data, much to his frustration.  
  
_"Missing... some parts..."_  
  
Hawker stood, his groin inches away from Chris' blissed-out face, and reached out the run his fingers through that russet hair. "Tellin' me," he grunted, watching as Chris reacted like cloying jelly to the mech's touch. Optics darted over to the screens, where he began to appear in slow snapshots against a background that would have been at home in a Dali painting.  _It's just missing the melting clocks._  
  
_"Better not... be a dream."_  
  
The mech remained there, his fingers still lazily fiddling with the human's hair. It stuck up in all sorts of funny directions, and Hawker was thoroughly enjoying how it felt. After a few seconds Chris' lids drooped and his cheek settled further into the pillow. Hawker glanced around the room, to the closed door, then to the camera in the corner. Hand was still rhythmically stroking Chris' head.  
  
He looked to Chris.  
  
Then to the camera.  
  
And then he interrupted its feed.  
  
Strangled into static, it would have looked like a temporary bug on the screen in the security room.  _Just a few seconds,_  Hawker told himself as heat built up at the prospect of what he was about to attempt. Just a few seconds...  
  
His right hand gently stroked along the boy's slack jaw, prompting those heavy lids to lift again. Green eyes.  
  
"Boss?" he murmured sluggishly. Those lips, that warm, peaceful look. Even high off his ass the kid waited for orders.  
  
He pressed those tight, strong hips against the side of the bed, drawing Chris's face closer with his grasp in that hair and under that chin.The boy made a faint, breathy noise.  
  
"You remember how to be a good boy, don't you?" Hawker rumbled quietly. No cock to slap against his cheek or stuff in his mouth. At least, not yet. But Hawker found himself  _needing this_  as the seconds ticked by. How did he know if another opportunity like this would ever come again? When's the next time his pilot would need an entirely new interface unit installed? Never, that's when. The mech did not want to pass up this delicious opportunity.  
  
Chris obeyed with buttery, mindless compliance. The sight of his small human - weak, injured, and in no state of mind to make any decisions about anything - as he turned his head to lick and kiss at that singular swell of metal, even now, so anemically, made everything in the world feel perfect and right.  
  
"M...hm..." Chris breathed.  
  
A sick smirk tugged at his mouth, and a familiar blast of hot air erupted from paper-thin slats under his scapulae. "Be good for your captain," he murmured, gently rocking his hips against that slow, eager mouth. "Be good for  _daddy_ , boy."  
  
\---   
  
It didn't last long. He permitted it to go on for maybe another 60 seconds before he pulled away to kiss Chris on the mouth. It was sensual and possessive and his human whimpered faintly at the attention from the hulking, Greek god-shaped mech. A welling up of cruel eroticism pooled deep in his chest, deep in his CPUs, and Hawker knew that he wanted to have this again. Wanted to have Chris as he floated in some kind of twilight consciousness, limp and almost ethereal. No bombast, no sharp eyes, no cleverness. Just... this. Butter.  
  
But first things first.  
  
Hawker leaned his shoulder to the wall, still unsure about the chair, and let life fizzle back into the CCTV feed. (With someone probably the wiser, but he didn't care right now.)  
  
Right now, Hawker had some reading to do. And then he was going  _shopping_.

 

* * *

 

 

The little room wasn't entirely empty of personal effects. In the small table next to the left side of the bed sat Chris's phone on a charger. A change of fresh clothes in a drawer, perhaps an optimistic item, but a comforting thought.  
  
Hours later, there was a soft knock on the door. Sarah Colburn entered, looking worn down but pleased. "I figured I'd find you here. Medical sent out a message, word's getting around that Celn is up, but out of it." She glanced at the images for a time, noticing her presence beginning to appear. Hawker's new frame is prominently present. Sometimes, the 9081 appeared. "Chris? Are you there?" her freshly scrubbed hand reached out, touching his shoulder.  
  
"uuh hrmm..?" came the drowsy reply. He half-opened his eyes and searched for the source of the sound. Not the large, rooming for of Hawker. He traced his eyes along the strange sandy beach that morphed into a densely wooded forest. It is Chief! Chief Engineer Colburn! He knew who it is! A slow smile spread across his features. "..Hey-lo.."  
  
"They got you on the good sauce don't they? How do you feel?"  
  
Chris breathed for a time, his visions focuses on the strange plants that suddenly filled the room. "..tired.."  
  
She patted his shoulder. "Good. Just take it easy. Work that implant scabber."   
  
Then she turned attention to the Ares frame. Hawker looked dangerous again, powerful. He watched, observing the young pilot. Always watching. Her feet brought her around the bed, her voice directed to the machine. "Take good care of him Captain. And.." she let out a sigh. "..I expect you'll have adjustment issues with your new Chassis. Come up with an error report in two days and I'll get things sorted out that you can't."  
  
Her eyes strayed to the lucid dreaming pilot. "I finished going through the black box footage from your fight. At some point there will be questions from the armed forces, possibly any of the three-lettered agencies." Her arms crossed, and she looked dead ahead, staring at the muted colors of the Ares 3 chest. "Will that be a problem?"  
  
That was an old phrase. He'd heard it countless times when she'd woken him up after his hibernation. His lobotomy. Lee had been there for him, always guiding. A staunch personal code to imitate, to emulate for the smiles of his superior officers. "No Ma'am. No problem." The old answer and he had said it so often to the question.  
  
"Good." A last, long glance at the small pilot before she left.  
  
Several of the other pilots came by to wish Chris a speedy recovery while the twink tripped balls. Tsung bouncing with glee as she felt over the Ares 3 frame, marvelling at the way the artificial muscled moved and functioned just like a well built human could. Wen had brought a card, reading it aloud and leaving it on the bedside table. Ferdinand had found two teddy bears, one bigger than the other. The small one had the same limbs as Chris bandaged up and it sat neatly in the lap of the stern-looking larger bear. Jane added a second card, this one with glitter that seemed to get everywhere. Even Becker had made an appearance, but it was far more likely that Steve had goaded him into coming. The two were nearly physically identical and looked like a pair of fraternity bros. While Becker stayed at the doorway, Steve gave a great handshake to Hawker and jostled Chris a bit as he promised to help get him 'swole' once the greenhorn recovered.  
  
\---  
  
Kole calmly copied and pasted the same paragraphs he'd written for the last ten days, moving them between documents and adjusting the words as needed. Costa rested in a chair, reaching out with a fresh-looking arm, flexing his fingers before placing it carefully on the arm of the chair. "How are you holding up, Detective?"  
  
"Good now. I'm pretty surprised that spicker was able to shear off my old one at the elbow. They didn't even offer to repair my old one, just re-built the shoulder coupling and gave me this." He curled his fingers up, able to make a proper fist finally after 15 years. "It's not all bad. Just not quite used to it yet."  
  
"I want your opinion on something with our lovebirds."  
  
Costa chuckled. "A soap opera has less twists and turns."  
  
"Hum-hm. Colburn and Tsung have been editing the fight together, adding in the vanguard's flight recorder. Tell me what you make of this:"  
  
He turned around the screen, playing the compiled footage.  
  
"Ishcheyka?" spoke a voice in Russian over the radio. Hawker faltered. Chris's mental voice ripped across the speakers as Big Nine got flanked. "Hawker. Captain. Ishcheyka! GET UP!"  
  
The video paused.   
  
Kole spoke first. "That was the name they gave to him in Russia, Roman. Before he ever knew Lee."  
  
"So Chris knows it's Hawker's old name?"  
  
"Yeah. I'm not sure if he just found out then, or picked it up earlier."  
  
Roman's electric eye dimmed as he thought. Was this revenge, rolled in with the invasion? And what could this mean for the pair?  
  
The video resumed.  
  
<Chris...> Hawker's bass rumble distorted on the tinny speakers.  
  
<I think they wanted you to come after them Boss. They knew your old name.> Chris was calmly frantic, on the internal visual camera the kid was moving the pilot seat around like it was a joyride; while the direct neurospace feed showed him funneling the references to Ishcheyka into a folder marked low-priority.  
  
[HAPTIC NET: INTEGRITY: RA: 99% LA: 0% RL: 100% LL: 92% T: 94% H: 99%]  
  
Pause.  
  
Roman got to it first. "I have that readout of my own. Looks like Celn threw the breakers. Shut down any sensations coming in. Had to do the same thing when I lost my old arm."  
  
"Yeah. But again, the name. Did Chris ever mention Hawker's old life to you?"  
  
"No. I didn't ask either. Kid doesn't let much slip."  
  
The feed resumed with a huff from the Sergeant.  
  
<Chris, what are you DOING? Chris!> Worry in that voice.  
  
<Chris, no. Chris. Chris! I'm NOT losing another pilot again!> Concern, genuine as it could be.  
  
<I love you.> Chris sounded choked up, like he knew what was going to happen. Tsung had warned them.  
  
Then the weapon deployed and Chris screamed as he was both electrocuted and cooked. Almost instantly the life support systems kicked in, forcing air down his throat and stimulating his heartbeat through the implant.  
  
Paused, right as Chris slumped lifelessly and smoke poured from the piloting suit.  
  
Costa pulled out a fresh pen and chomped on it hard. He exhaled as he shook his head. "That had to hurt. No wonder they had to re-work his implant."  
  
"I've had both the CIA and the FBI asking for a full report on this. I know they're going to ask about these two. I want you honest opinion if you were going to be asked about this."  
  
Costa through for a time. "I think it'd be impossible for Chris to be an agent. He may have picked up on the old name before, they do share a mind. As far as the love goes?" THe pen danced, slipping from one side to the other and back.  
  
Kole was going to hold up a pad of paper one of these days, just to see how good of a spirograph Costa could be.  
  
"Tell 'em the truth. They're in a relationship. Not what could be anywhere near normal, but it's what they are. A pair. And if they want to know more, your three-letter friends ask ask for themselves at the source."  
  
Kole chuckled, turning back the monitor. "I'm worried they just  _might_."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker eventually got Thule to bring him a better chair. It still creaked under his weight when he finally sat down in it, but the metal definitely wasn't going to give. He spent an entire day going over the user manual Colburn had so kindly left him, leaving the AI quite impressed with what the Ares 3 was capable of doing. 25MPH top speed, 9-foot jump height (at the heel, sans loadout), 100-meter water resistance... Computer-wise, it topped out at an impressive 64 petaFLOPS of on-board processing power, 72-hour battery life at an output of 50 mWh. And the hard-dicked accolades from every mech tech and firearms magazine from here to Timbuktu was on the money. Rapid targeting system; CO2 and pheromone detectors; self-repairing sub-skin membranes that kept out dust and debris in the case of an armor breach. The list went on.  
  
All in all, he was surprised Colburn even  _gave_  him the damn thing.  
  
\---  
  
The news about feds showing up frustrated him almost as much as the idea of reporters slinking around, but there was at least a good reason for it. The US  _had_  just narrowly escaped full-out war again. Somebody was after the banks, after as many stock-trading servers as could be found. They wanted nothing short of  _crippling_  the US economy just as it was beginning to get back on its feet after Siberia. They wanted...  
  
_Ishcheyka._  
  
That rough voice on the radio, crackling. Hawker could still hear the pilot's breath on his mic, the sounds of his cockpit as he growled the word like it was the most hated name he knew. Like he was prepared to drag the mech to hell with his own two hands if that's what it took.  
  
The Russian hadn't come easily since the battle, though. He tried remembering, but couldn't access the data now. The knowledge, the memories had come and gone - permitted themselves to be remembered during his fight against the Russians and then promptly retreated back into the depths of his machine subconscious. Somewhere, somehow, the Bloodhound had woken up, and it seemed like it was trying to piece itself back together.  
  
Who in the fuck  _programmed_  him 12 years ago?  
  
The mech suddenly had the strange suspicion that whoever it had been, was dead.  
  
\---  
  
Finally, after two weeks, it was time for Chris' discharge.  
  
Kole and Colburn were there, watching as 07-C helped assist Chris out of the bed and into a wheelchair. When Hawker had tried extending a hand to help, the medical droid snapped and batted him away. "You know, in the 'olden days', husbands were prohibited from being present in the hospital room where their wives were receiving treatment for just this reason."  
  
The sculpted mouth on that face scowled. "For  _what_  reason?"  
  
"Damned over-protectiveness, captain. It can prevent a medical droid from doing its job."  
  
Colburn chuckled behind her hand and Hawker shot her a look before stepping aside with a grumble. "How long's he gonna be in that thing?"  
  
"It's just to get him upstairs. I will have a pair of crutches sent to his suite, and post-care instructions will be available for download." Hawker folded his massive arms, maintaining his scowl as he looked over the boy in the chair, white gown not doing his handsome frame any favors. "Be sure to follow  _all_  of them. He will need assistance for most tasks for a few days, including bathing, lifting anything over 10 pounds, and getting in and out of bed."  
  
"...bathing, huh?" His mind filled with lechery for a moment. "Good thing I'm waterproof." Hawker stepped forward once Chris was wheeled off to the other side of the bed, where 07-C left the job to be taken over by somebody else. Meaning...  _him_. "How you doing, kid?" the mech said gruffly, trying to hide his happiness. He knelt down beside him and ruffled his hair. He bent forward to plant a kiss on those lips, but paused - catching himself when he realized that the chief and the sergeant had never witnessed one of their PDAs. He wasn't sure if they'd gotten used to the idea yet. "The, uh... that sauce workin' good still?"

 

* * *

 

 

Chris's mental gymnastics had ended after three days. He'd had a day to relax, to let the stuff cycle out of his system as Hawker'd helpfully cleaned and straightened up the room.   
  
Then they'd started him on physical therapy and mental exercises. They'd kept him hooked into the heavy system, feeling it as he kept having to project himself into the virtual environment and work! Every few hours they'd have him run through a simulation or put himself up through another battery of tests. He'd thought he had left this mess behind when he'd gotten out of the scabber school! Hawker would watch from his perch on that reinforced chair, occasionally offering to hook up and give his pilot a real run in neurospace.  
  
But is was the physical therapy that the 6' 10" giant got to truly enjoy himself. With the careful guidance of a medical droid, he got to touch his pilot. Copping a feel of that delicate rear while raising a leg. Watching that face scrunch up in pain as the limb got worked through the range of motion. THe sharp hisses and the occasional tear as his ligaments were given a stretching. Every three hours he could interrupt the boy's rest, force him to run through the necessary cycles, then get back on the mental gymnastics.  
  
Sitting on the bed is a large clear bag holding all the knick-knacks that'd ended up in the room after his stay. He'd turned an embarrassed red when it was implied that he was Hawker's wife. Not that the big bit wasn't the MAN in their relationship, but Chris isn't exactly a girl! Even though he is wearing a white dress and had to be helped around like a helpless kitten. The wheelchair had a vinyl feel to the shiny black fabric under his bare behind, and it felt good to get out of that damned bed. The catheter coming out? That'd just hurt.   
  
He give the handsome Ares shell a smile as his brown hair got a tussle, and he leaned up for a kiss. The presence of the senior staff not really registering as much as it should. "I am feeling good. Really warm."  
  
07-C gestured with a dismissive flick. "You have access to 500mg ibuprofen pills." THe orange translucent canister rattled as it placed them in Chris's hand. "Anything stronger and you'll need to come down here." Then it gently plopped the clear bag on Chris's lap, the teddybears hunched over in a naughty position. "I don't want you back in for at least two months, think you can manage that Celn?"  
  
That got a laugh out of Kole. "He's not wrong. You've barely spent more time on duty then down in here."  
  
Colbrun basked in a special kind of pleasure. She had days of video footage proving that despite her constant concern, HAwker DID care. Hawker had worried and fussed over his pilot. "And, there's something pretty special about you getting out of here too."  
  
"You are officially the last officer in 42 to get out of medical after the events of the Thanksgiving war. You've better be working hard on recovering, because you have plans for the holidays." From his right suit jacket pocket, he handed an old-fashioned letter to the wounded pilot. Chris fumbled trying to juggle all he had, opening it with his good hand and reading. After a long minute, he raised it up and showed his partner.  
  
_'Dear Officer Celn;_  
_In thanks for going above and beyond during the 30-Hour Invasion, you and a guest are invited to dine with the Mayor and prominent Chicago citizens in a celebration of our victory over the forces that push against our city and nation. Please be at the location at 4:30 PM for photographs and amuse-bouche._  
_Sincerely,_  
_Mayor Daily III'_  
  
"And don't worry, you'll be sharing a table with the myself and the chief here." Kole chuckled, savoring the confused look on the roasted pilot's face.  
  
"Gonna need a suit." Chris murmured. Then he smiled slow at Hawker. "Maybe one for you..?"  
  
\---  
  
As the chair rolled out, Chris could feel wind in his hair and the firm grip of Hawker on the handles. The moved out smartly and quickly up to his room on floor 8. There they'd FINALLY been able to kiss properly. Chris's ingured hand scrabbling over that magnificent body, his smaller lips consumed in the passion of the machine. His normal hand squeezing along the thick muscles.  
  
"You need a dick. Don't care if I gotta buy you one. I wanna have something pushin' into me when we hug."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker still knelt, beaming throughout their friendly banter. When 07-C handed Chris the pills, Hawker snatched the bottle up as soon as they wound up in the kid's lap next to those damn bears. If he was going to be taking care of his pilot, then he was going to be taking Hawker-style care, dammit. He gave the bottle a little shake and held onto them - wishing, for the first time in his life, that he had pockets. " _I'll_  be dispensing these."  
  
He glanced at Colburn, keeping tabs on her reaction. The woman met his gaze, and the mech didn't see anything there that resembled anxiety or suspicion. In fact, she flashed him a small smile, and there was a twinkle in her eye. "And, there's something pretty special about you getting out of here too," she said, nodding at the Ares once between turning back to Chris.  
  
Kole handed something to the young man that looked like it was official enough, and Hawker rose as Chris opened and read it over. He watched as his brows went from furrowed to raised, and a little surprised sound escaped him when he handed the paper up to the Ares. He took it with a hand twice as big as his, and looked it over.  
  
"Well, damn," Hawker grunted, folding the paper back up and sliding it into its envelope. He wasn't sure if he was invited, so he kept his trap shut, but...  
  
_"Gonna need a suit. Maybe one for you..?"_  
  
He cocked a brow plate, and his optics flickered like a flutter of a blink. Well, looks like he  _was_  going. "I guess there's a first for everything," he chuckled, quite for lack of anything really clever to say to such a simple honor. He wondered what one of these fancy black-tie events were really like.   
  
...or what it would be like to set foot inside of a human building without ripping the roof off.  
  
A quip came to mind, though, so when his hands found the chair's handles - the one still rattling with the pill bottle - he leaned down with a shit-eating grin. "And really? I thought you'd have wanted to take Becker."  
  
\---  
  
As soon as the pair made it up to Chris' room, door mostly closed behind them, Hawker grabbed the kid by the chin and yanked his face up for a powerful kiss that left his bottom lip red and swollen.  
  
_"You need a dick. Don't care if I gotta buy you one. I wanna have something pushin' into me when we hug."_  
  
The mech moved around to the front of the chair to kneel. His hand went to Chris' knee, moving slowly, gently upwards until his fingers slipped under the edge of that gown, where he massaged his boy's thigh.  
  
"Buy me one, huh?" he thought aloud, yellow optics glinting. His fingertips found Chris' soft little dick and stroked along it. Chris whimpered faintly, and Hawker chuckled at the feeling of him hardening. "I think I like the idea of raiding your bank account... I've been eyeing that new SIG Sauer 9mm carbine from last season, while you're at it."  
  
He kept stroking lazily, keeping an optic on the three inches of open door behind him. Then he remembered something.  
  
"You need a shower, don't you?"  
  
\---  
  
After the two had left, Kole and Colburn slipped into an empty post-op room to have a word.  
  
"You feel better?" the sergeant asked. "You certainly  _look_  better."  
  
Colburn brushed her bangs out of her face, heaving a sigh of relief. "Not gonna feel better until the DOD gives us their seal of approval, but as far as those two go..."  
  
"Case closed?" Kole chuckled. His smile shone bright white against that dark skin.  
  
"I... I don't know about  _that_. Hawker's starting to remember who he used to be, though it looks like he's doing an admirable job of keeping that all away from Chris. Or maybe he's not fully conscious of it. Maybe it's a split personality thing..."  
  
Kole's hand went to her shoulder and she shut up. "Sometimes you engineers over-think things," he suggested. "Maybe it's time to give that all a rest for a few days. Take one thing at a time, yeah?"  
  
She acquiesced, glancing out the door even though the pair had long disappeared into the elevator. A sigh: "You know, sometimes I wonder how he does it without something to drown his sorrows. He didn't  _choose_ to wake up in that body, with those memories. Not  _this_  Hawker, at least."  
  
Kole thought for a minute, following her gaze absentmindedly. He hummed and hawwed; remembered what he'd told her the week before. The cure for Ishcheyka, if they couldn't delete it...  
  
"Would it be possible to invent something like that for him?"  
  
She shrugged. "I mean, if you think about what alcohol  _is_ , it's a poison. It damages us just gently enough to get the side-effects we like so much. Machines and AI have similar pathways, so I guess it would be..." Colburn stopped and looked at the police sergeant. "Wait. Wait a minute. You are  _not_  asking me to invent our captain some moonshine. Because if you  _were_  asking that, then I'd say you were damned crazy!"  
  
Kole barked a laugh, slapped his hand on her back. "C'mon Chief, you've always wanted to know what kind of drunk he was."  
  
She heaved a great, big, LOUD sigh, and folded her arms tightly. "How much you wanna bet he's an  _angry_  drunk."  
  
"I'm putting my money on weepy." He continued laughing, heading for the doorway. "Just asking if you can look into the feasibility. It might help him, I don't know... feel more at home in social situations if he could  _partake_."  
  
"With all due respect, sometimes I just want to strangle you, sergeant."  
  
He knocked on the doorframe as he stepped out, heading for the elevator himself. His happy voice echoed down the hallway. "Amateur. You know strangulation killers always get caught!"

 

* * *

 

 

 _"And really? I thought you'd have wanted to take Becker."_  
  
Chris snorted, a lazy chuckle coming with his smile. "Technically he'd be appropriate. I'd rather Wen though."  
  
\---  
  
The hulking machine knelt before him, sensuously sliding a massive hand up under his smock. It is marvellous what those finely controlled fingers could do now, and the feeling of a comforting touch is welcome. He easily comes to full mast, pulsing in the thick fingers of his partner. He sagged in the wheelchair, huffing as his mind swam and emotions filled him.   
  
_"I think I like the idea of raiding your bank account..._  
  
"nnn..nnnot raiding. I want to buy you a gift. You.. oooh.. yeah.." he's easily getting close, then it all stops.  
  
_"You need a shower, don't you?"_  
  
That got his head up off the wheelchair's backrest. "Yes I do!" He'd made a wet spot in that flimsy hospital gown. "I haven't been in one in weeks."   
  
\---  
  
Chris had directed hawker to the basket of toiletries, which sat on a table with a stack of large towels and little cloths.  
  
"What is body wash?" asked Hawker.  
  
"It's a cleaner that's applied to the luffa and used on my body." Chris explained, feeling a bit silly. Didn't the mech know this stuff?  
  
"The facial cleanser is used to wash my face, I use a small cloth for that. Shampoo is for hair. Conditioner comes after. It's like wax for hair, you leave it in for a bit before rinsing."  
  
The look on Hawker's face!   
  
"Look, you wouldn't use the wrong cleansers on a gun, would you?"  
  
\---  
  
For once Chris didn't feel guilty using the handicapped shower stall. He sat nude on the plastic bench as wonderfully warm water flowed over him. On both his legs and his right arm the puncture wounds had closed, but left a number of nasty scars. And between each of the points, a line of angry healing cells ached whenever he moved. Sliding his left hand through his now soaked hair, he gave a grin to the looming giant. "This feels so good.. sponge baths just don't cut it."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris pointed at all the tubes of shower product, explaining what each one was, how it was applied and for how long.  
  
_"Look, you wouldn't use the wrong cleansers on a gun, would you?"_  
  
The mech stood in the handicap shower stall, head bent to keep from hitting the ceiling, as he studied a bottle of Herbal Essences brand shampoo. It was a clear, viscous liquid, dyed yellow, and was  _supposed_  to have flowers in it. Whatever the fuck 'calendula' was. He snapped open the cap and gave it a sniff, unimpressed.  
  
"I'm pretty sure Lee washed his hair with Windex," Hawker snorted, squirting some shampoo - altogether too much, actually - into his hand. "Don't see why any of  _my_  pilots should need the kid gloves."  
  
He grabbed the shower nozzle with his other hand and sprayed Chris down with the warm water, deciding, for the moment at least, to avoid the sexual. It was, after all, his call to make, and with the state of his legs, from all those puncture wounds... this first, then the other. His skin was dotted with scars this time: little reddish, star-shaped dots from where the metal splinters had skewered him like a dozen butterfly pins. Hawker felt both an anger rear up in him at the sight of Chris' healing injuries, but a building arousal too, and the two opposing feelings comingled strangely.  _ **I'm**  supposed to be the only one that can do that to you,_the resultant heady cocktail seemed to say.  
  
Even like this, he looked fuckable as hell as Hawker reached forward to scrub his boy's wet hair and work it to a lather. Chris closed his eyes, enjoying the scalp massage from the strong, capable fingers. A few moments later and the mech rinsed all those silky white suds away. They ran down his body in tantalizing streaks and rivulets.  
  
"I'm not doing all of it," he announced as he grabbed the washcloth and knelt down again at Chris' feet to go over his now-delicate legs. Optics lingered hungrily on that flaccid shaft resting between those thighs. "But I  _will_  wash your hair and do your legs."  
  
The shower stall was  _barely_  big enough for the both of them, and Hawker made a mental note to come back in here once he had a proper dick to fuck with. He wanted those legs wrapped around his waist as he slammed that boy's body against the tile wall. The steam was annoying: it kept fogging up his optics. But Chris was enjoying it. The moist heat relaxed him, turned him into putty in his captain's doting hands. They wouldn't be doting for too much longer, though - the mech had a payment in mind that they might both agree on.  
  
The sight of the scarring bothered, him, though, and at some point, he stopped. The water was hitting him in the back, sluicing down his armored spine. The scarring, as it turns out, was reminding him of something else.  
  
"Chris," he said quietly, still kneeling, and set the wash cloth to hang on a suction-cup hook. "Did you... really mean what you said that night?"

 

* * *

 

 

 _"I'm pretty sure Lee washed his hair with Windex,."_  came the derisive snort.  
  
Chris must either be getting clear headed or the drip feed of continuous painkillers must have finally worn off. He is more alert but quite lethargic under the steaming heat of the shower. The way his head followed the firm fingertips and the cute-as-hell noises he made when he was rinsed.  
  
The large pockmarks left from the metal skewers still were deep red, still scabbed in spots. The exit wounds had been twisted rips in his flesh, splitting the skin without concern. The older scars though, they were fascinating. Hawker hadn't had the chance to study how Chris was marked int his kind of detail before. Their other nude encounters were far too frenzied.  
  
Some of them were more recent, like the three long lines on his lower back. Each one a raised bead like a weld. His ankles had older scars though, thick bands of discoloration and places where they skin hadn't ever really developed right as he'd grown. A finger over that part of him barely elicited a response. No hairs there either, perhaps they were old skin grafts. The right thigh had a dimple, a kind of concave intrusion on the muscle that had -also- been speared by the Taser. His chest features perhaps twenty slashes that'd heaved up in ages past. Harder to discern the reason for those, and they spanned from below his navel to just under the collarbone. THere was a nice one on his scalp as well, between the left ear and under the hairline, arcing almost to the top of his head before curling back down to to where it disappeared under the implant. Left hand of course had the replacement fingers, right arm had what looked like an old wound that'd been closed with crude stitches, on the tricep.   
  
Chis could wash his arms and chest, working the special cleanser into his face and behind his ears. But he leaved forward, holding the puffy thing full of body wash. "Could you get my back and butt? Might even have to have you hold me up while you do it. DOn't trust my feet on the floor yet."  
  
Then Hawker cut of the flow of the water, the spray splashing around him, making a rainbow aura in the fine droplets as the bathroom light refracted.  _"Did you... really mean what you said that night?"_  
  
"What? What I said?.." confusion for a moment, then his eyebrows raised.   
"Oh. That."  
  
He suddenly found the floor of the shower to be interesting. There is a small trickle of blood coming from somewhere. Probably one of the larger scabs on his right thigh, he look a look. Yup, that nasty one where three of the metallic quills had popped out inches from each other, popping open his skin like a half-peeled orange.  
  
"I thought I was going to die. That drill, it was getting through fast, I could see the sparks." he began. he'd given a verbal report 10 times now, to different people. Those last moments were seared in his mind, not wiped out. He remembered the pain and the mercy of black unconsciousness. "I think it'd be the last thing I ever said to you."  
  
He pulled the left hand through his hair, slicking it back. The right lifted, fingers clenching painfully into a half-fist. He'd been hit hard in his muscles and tendons; bones a bit too tough for the quills to get through.   
  
"I did. I do." a long pause as he breathe din the humid air.  
  
"I love you." it felt so strange to say it, and he had the need to justify the words. "I'm not sure if it's what normal people mean. But I want to be with you. I want to have sex with you. And the worst thing that could happen is have you reject me." He swallowed, wiping his eyes. "IS that love? That's what I feel."  
  
The water ran for a little time.  
  
"Do you feel anything for me?"

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker averted his optics after Chris started speaking, giving the kid the smallest modicum of room to think in such a claustrophobic place.  
  
_"I think it'd be the last thing I ever said to you."_  
  
It was strange, being here. Being in control, being the boss, and being  _here_. Being, for most of his life, a one-of-a-kind HLX-9 Vanguard-class Hawker SWAT unit, now a $2.3 million-dollar Ares mark 3 personnel drone, and being  _here_. Washing his pilot's feet like he was a disciple of Christ instead of a disciple of violence.  
  
He looked at Chris' scars now that he had the time. Really looked at them. Lee had been covered in them, too, from his hard life in the military, which is why Hawker never paid them any mind before now. Chris' were strange, suspicious. Some gnarled, others long and lean; there were lines, complex shapes, stories written in the flesh. Hawker touched one, to... to validate. It was important that the superior officer validated his subordinate.   
  
_"I do. I love you."_  
  
Hawker figured it would be a good time to look back up to his face, and he saw trepidation and emotion there. The handsome young man, battered since long before Hawker came along it seemed, blinked back tears from those green eyes as he struggled with his words. And though Hawker made almost no indication of it, those words were sinking in. Working through his internals, burrowing through his quantum neural pathways.  
  
_"Do you feel anything for me?"_  
  
Something in him started humming faintly. He wasn't sure what it was, he'd have to look into it later. Hawker rose, stepped closer to his boy and gently pulled his head to lean against his hard side. Fingers in his wet hair again.  
  
"I feel a lot for you," he finally said. The words sounded fucking ridiculous coming out. He wasn't designed for talking, for having pow-wows about  _feelings_ ; he was designed to punish, to beat, to menace. Wait, fuck that - Hawker was a DF2. He could make his own decisions. Be his own person.  _What kind of person do you want to be then, Nine?_  Because no matter how strange it was to be here,  _he was here now_. This was happening. He asked.  
  
"You're going to need to give me time." Another admission. Something to be frustrated with - the Hawker of yesteryear never needed  _time_. He acted. "This is... all new to me."  _Validate him_ , he commanded himself.  _That's what he needs!_  He moved to hug Chris' shoulders from this awkward angle, and do it gently. There'd be time for crushing bear hugs later. For the roughness that felt so correct to administer. "But I'm..." Hawker searched for the right word, faintly rumbling at his sudden inadequacy in the face of this task. "I'm honored that I mean so much to you. Humbled." He cycled air like a sigh. "I hope to god that you don't take me the wrong way.  _Fuck..._ "

 

* * *

 

 

 _"I feel a lot for you."_  
  
The tension Chris had building up inside came out with a relived sigh. He didn't know how tense he'd become, only that he knew that his stomach was in a knot. THe hug he held onto.  
  
Gentleness from Hawker wasn't unknown, but it is unexpected. Perhaps it didn't have to be. He remembered the talks he'd had with Hoss. He and Hawker would need to set up boundaries and rules. THey'd have to talk about so many things with the power exchange. But for now, he felt that powerhouse of an Ares chassis embrace as a comfort.  
  
_"You're going to need to give me time."_  the boy nodded his head up and down, holding one of the huge hands with his own.  
  
"That's FINE! I don't even know what it all means. But I didn't want to die without letting you know what you meant to me." He squeezed two of those big fingers in his fist. He gave encouraging smiles as the big robot explained itself the best it could. He leaned forward and kiss those silvery lips softly. THen he kissed the wet cheek as well, enjoying being honest and intimate with the giant in a new way.  
  
_"I hope to god that you don't take me the wrong way."_  
  
"You're new to this. You've never dealt with a relationship before. I really haven't had much luck with mine."   
  
They stared at each other for a time, both considering the possibilities. CHris spoke back up. "I'm sorry that this is so sudden for you. You have all the time you need. Please just talk with me. or ask others for advice."  
  
He blinked away a sudden spray of water as Hawker moved. "JUst not Becker. Guy is just a poonhound. New girl every weekend."  
  
They both chuckled at that. More cleaning of the soft damaged skin until every trace of the medical stay had been washed away. Chris needed to lean heavily onto the shoulder of the machine, his legs trembling as he tried to stand.  
  
"It really hurts when I do that. I can feel the sharp stabbing pain all over again. This sucks, I can't even freaking walk!"  
  
Then he was back down, his good hand rubbing of the broad pectorals of Hawker. "Thank you. THis is hard for me too. But we can make it. I know that you need me." He nodded.  
  
"It's part what makes you tick. I can feel it when I'm in the 9081. I know that's where I belong and where you want me." He taps the lower part of the chest. "Right there, near your heart. But I can't be there all the time."  
  
He paused to think about being inside 9081. THe funny part was they hadn't done it that often, maybe only 2 weeks of time all added up. "But you're willing to try. But for now, how about you get me outta here before I turn into a prune?"

 

* * *

 

 _"I'm sorry that this is so sudden for you. You have all the time you need. Please just talk with me. or ask others for advice."_  
  
"Sometimes... life-changing things are sudden." Life-changing, huh? He considered, and not for the first time, both Chris  _and_  Lee, side-by-side. They would have gotten along. "Death never comes on schedule."  
  
_"You're new to this. You've never dealt with a relationship before. I really haven't had much luck with mine."_  
  
"Been around the block a few times for some things," Hawker chuckled. "But this? Your patience is all I guess I could ask for." Somewhere in Chicago, Dr. Bea Morris was surely feeling a disruption in the Force.  
  
\---  
  
  
_"It really hurts when I do that. I can feel the sharp stabbing pain all over again. This sucks, I can't even freaking walk!"_  
  
Hawker laughed. Not even with Lee, he realized, did he laugh quite so much as when he did with Chris. It felt good. The mech stood still, firm, as the kid tried using him as leverage for standing. No go.  
  
"Well, it's not like you  _didn't_  just spent two weeks in a bed after having your every leg muscle tenderized like a cheap steak. I'd say you were recovering damn fine, Officer Celn."  
  
Plop. He was back on the little bench again, wincing. Feeling up the Ares chassis after the discomfort had passed. Hawker liked the feeling of those shapely little hands on his chest - the haptic net on this body was superb, and his DF2's old pleasure pathways were remapping themselves to the new anatomy faster than he'd expected.  
  
_"It's part what makes you tick. I can feel it when I'm in the 9081. I know that's where I belong and where you want me."_  Hawker felt that little tapping, looked down. The phantom cockpit loomed large in his foreprocessors now, and somewhere underneath the end of that human finger something ached. It would ache as long the Ares was what he called home.  _"Right there, near your heart."_  
  
_The pilot is the mech's heart,_  he thought. The flesh and blood beating heart of the machine. This unspoken understanding was what the Bond really was.   
  
_"But you're willing to try. But for now, how about you get me outta here before I turn into a prune?"_  
  
He smiled, stooping to put his huge arm underneath Chris', offering to take most of his weight. "Deal. But only if we do a little shopping after I tuck you into bed. There's a few sites I found while you were down for the count," he said, hefting up his pilot and handing him a towel. "Purveyors of wares I think the  _both_  of us might find intriguing..."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker knew that humans had to keep clean. But the rituals of personal hygiene are strange and apparently different. Lee used a bar of soap for everything. Chris had at least four kinds of liquid wash. And then there wash brushing teeth, flossing. Pre and post mouthwash? Was that normal?  
  
Or was it fallout from living through a time when he was dirty beyond belief?  
  
Either way, by the end most of his body had minty or herbal scents. Barely any natural odor detectable at all.   
  
After sliding a jock on the twink, there'd been the matter of getting those soft casts back on his limbs. WHile painful, he seem pretty content once they were on. Then it was bed time, getting cutely nestled under the covers. At that point he was begging for one of the pain pills. "Please?"  
  
Chris had a brand new apple tablet sitting on his bedside, the box still on his desk. "I'd always wanted one." He admitted. "Now, why don't you show me what you had in mind for additional equipment. I hope to hell it's compatible with your frame."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Please?"_  
  
Hawker shook out exactly one pill and took it between his fingers, holding it up like a treat for a sitting dog. "As  _prescribed_." He grabbed a glass of water and handed them to Chris at the same time. "You're going to start  _swallowing_  your pills like a civilized person," he ordered. "I know your history, and I will suffer no pilot of mine nursing old habits like  _that_." And he meant it.  
  
The mech - now, technically a mere robot - sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress threatened to practically liquefy under his weight, but he chose to ignore it as he reached for the fancy new device on the nightstand to give it a careful once over.  
  
_"I'd always wanted one."_  
  
The sentiment made him feel gooey for a minute; still a foreign feeling, so he went about unlocking the thing and navigating to one of the webpages...  
  
\---  
  
All in all it was about an hour of perusing company sites with names like  _Simple Pleasures_ , or  _The Ammo Box_ , or  _Bad Android_. He and Chris were on the same page about one thing: the size. Most makers of prostheses like this didn't exactly have the Ares mark 3 in mind when they took to the drawing table for a new model. But some did. And they'd be getting his profoundest thanks.  
  
A few things they were able to agree on: the need for twitchable balls, cum cartridges, and a color that matched the rest of his rugged, metal hide. The size, though, was being debated.  
  
"I'm getting one with foreskin, too," he announced at some point, interrupting their intense discussion of the difference,  _really_ , between 13 and 14 inch lengths. "More surface area to feel you with. Mmm... more to watch you  _play_  with."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris rolled his eyes, but they came right back to that white tablet. "Gods, you AND medical ganging up on me about that! They kept the box of fun locked up too. Didn't even let me had the leftovers, just shut off the tripfeed and had you dispose of it once that trip ended." The pill went in easy, and he took the water as well. "Hell.. maybe it is the right call."  
  
He knew his struggle with addiction. He'd gotten how hammered on halloween? "Besides, normal pills taste like ass. Like.. dried chalk."  
  
\---  
  
Chris's left arm was the only limp that hadn't been holed, and that was the side he had to Hawker. Both pillows were up behind his back and he sunk into the mattress divot made by the machine. "I like the foreskin idea. Will be fun to get my tongue up under there. Plush it's fun to watch a thick cockhead emerge from one." He considered. "And it means pley of play in the skin of the shaft. Far less chance of a tear."  
  
Size though, that is a problem. "Look, you need to have a big one. And matching balls. But I'm the one who's gonna take it!" He gestured to his small torso. "Look, here they have a rough guide on average vaginal and anal capacity of humans by height. 12 inches is pushing it for a guy of my size. 13 is the freaking limit. 14? Holy hell! You won't be able to get all the way in me. Not without serious stretching and discomfort. I want you to be able to mount and plow me in any position you can think of. At 14 you'd be lucky to get balls deep."  
  
He flopped back and instantly regretted it. He tensed up with pain, mouth shut as he whimpered in his throat. Only after the unclenched and exhaled could get get his thoughts together.  
  
"None of them have adjustable length on the fly, we're mounting this to your groinal plate." He chewed on his lip, watching the shoulder and head of the android as it browsed the finely made table. In Hawker's hands it was almost a smartphone in scale. "How about this: double digits all the time. You get one that's really big when soft. Like, say 10 inches between your legs all the time. And you harden up to 12.5? Maybe 13?"  
  
Length was the deciding factor, no matter what they chose nothing bigger then 3" across was going into Chris. Not if he expected to be able to take it without a 10 minute warm up first.  
  
"Fuck. Need to order you some udnerwear too. You going commando will terrify the populace."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker eyed his boy when he gestured to his lean, vertically-challenged self, and did a rough guesstimate in his CPUs. Hilted, 14 inches would allow him to tickle a kidney or two. The image, as ridiculous as it was, make his phantom, soon-to-be-purchased-and-installed-dick twitch with excitement.  
  
He did a little Google-fu in his own head for a moment at Chris' protest, and came back with some encouraging information. "Don't know how tall he was, but I'm lookin' at a comment right now from a guy who was able to take 16 inches once." A brow plate cocked. "Said he came just from getting the dildo in all the way."  
  
Chris settled back into the bed, tensing and huffing with pain. Hawker let him catch his breath - as if touching him would help - and looked back to the tiny tablet in his hand, scrolling around some more.  
  
_"None of them have adjustable length on the fly, we're mounting this to your groinal plate."_  
  
"Yes. We are."  
  
_"How about this: double digits all the time."_  
  
"I wouldn't expect any less," he grunted, still browsing. "And no, I think I've decided on 14. 2.75-inch diameter erect should do it."  
  
_"Fuck. Need to order you some underwear too. You going commando will terrify the populace."_  
  
Hawker started pushing buttons, assembling his custom piece, and a belly-laugh welled up in him, rolling out in waves for a while. The images! He was picturing the reaction of everyone in 42 at seeing him freeballing without a care in the world. Becker, of course, would spit out his double-whip white mocha frap and run away, shrieking like a little girl.  
  
"Well at least it wouldn't take the 9081 to still be a menace to society," he finally said, managing to compose himself as he finished configuring the shopping cart. The total? A whopping $647, plus (discreet) shipping. "Too bad the box can't come with a nice, big WARNING label." He handed the tablet to Chris to get his final approval. "Or does this count as arms smuggling?"  
  
It was the Magnus model, in steely grays and pewters. The upward curvature was handsome, almost showing off its own sort of musculature with the highly defined corpus tissues. There was foreskin, but not too much; the cockhole was still plainly visible when flaccid. And the balls were realistic enough, though not perfectly so - Hawker decided it would have been weird to emulate flesh there when he had none anywhere else. Unaroused, they hung heavily, definitely on the larger side, and aroused they firmed up into an impressive globe that was highly rated for the sensation of its slapping against a bottom's taint while being fucked. The cum cartridge system was by far the lion's share of the price - his entire groinal plate would have to be replaced. The new one would have a barely noticeable plate above the base of the cock that sat flush with the 'skin', behind which the cartridges would be plugged in.  
  
As Chris looked it over, Hawker reclined a bit, planting one hand firmly on the mattress on the other side of Chris as he crossed one leg over the other. "As a consolation, I'll let you pick out the flavor of cum this time. We get a free box of 'em."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris couldn't help but to laugh with the boss, unable to remember hearing Hawker laugh like that before. He wiped his hand over his face once their shared mirth died down.  
  
"You were thinking about Becker seeing it too?" The Ares nodded and they had a shared smirk. At some point they'd both decided that Becker is going to be subjected to cock-terrorism, with Hawker as the vulgar terrorist. "Would he do that thing where he clenches his ass, so there's just no way you could fuck it?" Chris let out a sigh. "He has such a nice butt too, I've seen him doing squats. Pity."  
  
"It'll be a barely-concealed weapon knowing you. Even if you tucked it back you'll still have a monster bulge. At least that chassis came with a pair of combat pants." He looked over the cart and whistled. Then he turned his gaze to Hawker.  
  
"This could really hurt me. You tear me up inside and it's fucking months before I'd be healed."  
  
He thumbed through the choices, raising an eyebrow at the underwear. Every single one was a jockstrap of various designs. Hawker strutting around in just that? Woof.  
  
"It's a magnificent dick. If you can't get it in me I'll be really, really sad. And probably screaming as you hit my limits." Flavors? Cum had that? He checked over the list. "Chocolate? Vanilla? They have Pepsi flavor? Whipped cream?" he stuck out his tongue, seeing what was most popular. He went conservative, choosing the less aggressive flavors, the including natural, synth-spoo, and custard.  
  
He looked at that price one last time. Damn. THen he rested his thumb on the biometric sensor. "It's done. GOnna make a man our of you, Mr Handsome robot. God.. 14 inches. You're gonna have to spend forever stretching me to take that."  
  
Of course, being on his side or stomach as Hawker worked him over would be pretty nice. "Thank god I got paid this week. We need to get you a stipend or a paycheck." He yawned, and affectionately rubbed the sitting stud. "I'm gonna sleep. See you in the morning Handsome."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"He has such a nice butt too, I've seen him doing squats. Pity."_  
  
"Unfortunately, he's not usually in the habit of doing squats in the motor pool. Lifting crates of junk to impress the girls, though? You bet."  
  
_"It'll be a barely-concealed weapon knowing you. Even if you tucked it back you'll still have a monster bulge."_  
  
"What, you thought I'd go for a more  _humane_  7 inches? Sure, and I'll save myself 'til I'm married while I'm at it, too," he snorted. "Sorry kiddo - nobody expects modesty from 42's Hawker. Least of all  _me_. What's the point in even having junk if you can't show it off?"  
  
_"At least that chassis came with a pair of combat pants."_  
  
Hawker glanced back at the accessories list included with the MISB Ares... ah yes, so it did. Colburn must've forgotten to give them to him. He bit back another laugh when he imagined how that conversation would likely go. He looked to Chris as his little face went over the bill, and the smallest pang of guilt tugged at his CPUs at the surprised look on his face. The mech didn't exactly  _want_  to take advantage of him like this, but, well... he also sort of  _did_. Especially if it was to buy toys like this.  
  
_"It's a magnificent dick. If you can't get it in me I'll be really, really sad. And probably screaming as you hit my limits."_  
  
"Screaming as I hit your limits?" he said, voice low and as silky as his normal rumbling gravel would allow. "That's not exactly the deterrent you think it is."  
  
Then, like that, the purchase was made. Done deal.  _"Gonna make a man our of you, Mr Handsome robot. God.. 14 inches. You're gonna have to spend forever stretching me to take that."_  
  
Hawker smirked, slowly moving closer to Chris, bent over him. Knees and hands to either side of him. The bed frame creaked angrily. "Self-made and don't you forget it," he murmured. "And you're lucky I have damn good self control." Chris touched him, seemingly unable to keep his little hands off the broad, impressive swell of those pecs. His voice changed as he talked about money, though; there was a faint touch of frustration there. "C'mon, kid, it's not like you spend much of it anyways." The mech wasn't quite aware that his idea of a joke would likely come across as obtuse. Unfortunately, he still had a lot to learn about the concept of 'hard-earned pay'. Right now, it was all just numbers to him.  
  
Still, he leaned in for a rough kiss, pressing Chris' head back into his pillow for a few hungry seconds. "But it's definitely a thought. I'll see what the sergeant thinks."  
  
With that, he slid off the bed, jostling the kid tucked in it, and opened the suite's door. "Sleep tight, kiddo. And don't let  _anything_  but me bite. I'll kick their ass." He winked and shut the door behind him as Chris chuckled softly. By the time he'd reached the elevator, Hawker realized he'd grabbed the pill bottle and taken it with him.  _Guess I'm administering, then._


	21. Christmas Come Early

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the new dick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's that - I am officially caught up on the RP, so you'll have to wait a little longer for new installments because they haven't been written yet! Thanks for reading, guys <3

Early the next morning, Sergeant Kole went to step out of the elevator on his office floor, but was greeted by the sight of not a bustling hallway, but a hulking metal body that was apparently designed to be an affront to human architecture.  
  
"Hawker! What in the-??" Kole had started, then stepped out of the car, swinging his coat jacket over his shoulder. The mech being able to wander around the place was going to take some getting used to.  
  
"Just the man I wanted to see," came that obscene baritone as he took his place just behind the sergeant. There was no way the two of them would have been able to walk abreast. "How's your morning been so far, sir?"  
  
Kole scowled, blinked. He nodded and smiled at a few others as they passed them by, then continued his scowl like a train of thought. "Haven't had much of one yet," he said carefully. "It's 7. I just got here."  
  
"Right, yes." The pair rounded a corner. "You mind if I walk with you, sir?"  
  
"You already are, Hawker." A pause. "Now c'mon, out with it. What do you want? I'm not going to have you following me around in that Ares like damn oversized puppy."  
  
They approached his office and the man reached forward toward a small, unobtrusive biometrics scanner built into the brass knob of the classically-styled police station door. It had the bubbled privacy window and everything, over which was painted in black and gold letters:   
  
SUITE 1040  
POLICE SERGEANT GIDEON KOLE  
CHICAGO POLICE DEPT. #42  
  
The deadbolt retracted with a heavy clack, and the motion-sensor lights shuttered on as the two entered. Hawker remained ducked in the doorway as Kole put his things down, and he folded his arms across it, lounging as he stood. "I'd like a stipend, sir."  
  
The sergeant started. "A  _stipend?_ " His brows alternated between raising and furrowing. "I... I can't give an AI a  _stipend_ , Hawker."  
  
The mech was prepared for this argument, though. "Sir, I've found over 1000 cases of non-humans receiving pay in exchange for labor over the past two centuries. It wouldn't be unprecedented."  
  
Kole had this look about him that said  _it's too early for this shit_ , or  _I really have better things to do right now._  He sat down in his chair and sighed heavily, rubbing at that shiny head of his. "Captain, you're not... you're a ward of the state. I can't just up and put you on the dole. You've got no social security number, no birth certificate, no identity documents that would make it possible for me."  
  
"Sure I do. I have a serial number, a place and date of manufacture. I have a home address. No biological parents, but I've got the list of engineers who slapped the 9081 together and installed my MI."  
  
"Hawker, it's not the same and you know it. You'd have to pay taxes."  
  
"Fine, then. Don't think of this as pay. I'm a ward of the state. Give me an allowance then. Enough to grab some  _sweets_  from the  _candy_  store."  
  
"I'm not giving you money to buy guns with."  
  
The mech in the doorway snorted, shook his head. This was going to be more difficult than he thought. "I'm not talking  _guns_ , sir. I'm just talking..." He trailed off and shrugged. "Personal effects. Pants, for one."  
  
Pants? "Good luck finding any that'll even fit you, Nine," Kole chuckled, suddenly wishing he'd stayed in bed this morning.  
  
A brief silence passed between them and Hawker began doing something with his fingers above the doorframe. "Sir, Chris wants me to be his guest at the mayor's dinner," his voice was quieter this time. Was that that elusive vulnerability there? "I'll need a suit, and I'd be damned ashamed if I couldn't pay for it myself."  
  
Kole was suddenly sympathetic. He knew exactly the feeling the mech was alluding to, and an old memory surfaced. He was 27, getting ready to take Barbara out on their third date: a philharmonic performance at the Symphony Center, with a private wine tasting event in the lobby afterwards. He'd scraped and scrounged for that first Italian three-piece, and he'd had few prouder moments than when he was finally able to take it home, paying in cash.   
  
"I'll tell you what, Hawker," Kole said, rising from his seat to circle around his desk. "I'll give you what you need for the suit. The rest is a little more complicated than that, but I'll see what I can do."  
  
The Ares' face smiled a big, proud smile, and that enormous hand came to rest on his superior's shoulder. "That's all I needed to hear, sir. Thank you."

 

* * *

 

 

Kole watched as his door swung shut and and broad shouldered form walked away, the ears casting little shadows on the frost glass as the frame thumped away. He couldn't just pay Hawker, that would be a nightmare. And then there'd be the issues of properly damage, a lawsuit if the mech had assets. A headache from all directions.  
  
He sighed and turned on his computer, looking at the photograph of his wife on his desk.   
  
He couldn't in any way give Hawker a salary. But, maybe he could approve a budget? No one would question him allocating a small amount of funding to Colburn.. no. He needed it to be quiet.  
  
Hmmm. Quiet. Yes, that'd work nicely.  
  
\---  
  
Hawker had been tracking the package every day. THere's been some interesting messages regarding installation instructions, and in the end Chris had to cough up another $100 for the absurd alloys that made up Hawker's Ares 3 groinal plate. But 8 days later, it arrived. Hawker was in the mail room, and after it'd been received by the station he'd whisked it up to the motorpool.  
  
Chris sat on a tall stool, reading over the directions on the tablet. He'd managed to abscond one of the smaller machine shops, this one had a series of benches that half works in progress. Thankfully, no one else was busy trying to troubleshoot a broken T5 leg or diagnose a faulty audio distortion matrix at this hour. Far too early. He'd laid out the recommended tools, and spun a 10mm rachet in his hand.  
  
His crutches rested against the bench as well, and he'd gotten enough Tiny Tim references that he had started wearing a scarf and a little hat that make him look just like the Dickens character. Might as well roll with it. The install should be that hard, pardon the pun. Just take off eight bolts, swap the connectors, have Hawker install the software and reboot. Re-bolt and technically all would be well. Between the legs, right in the 'taint' was where the cum canisters would be loaded up.   
  
"I hope this works." He murmured to the empty room. "Like fuck Colburn would troubleshoot this."

 

* * *

 

 

"Boom," he said, practically kicking the door in as he entered with the surprisingly large box. "Let's do this." There was no lock, but they'd written a sign taped to the door to deter the nosy:  _Shh! Therapy session in progress._  Hawker took a chair and barricaded it against the handle anyways.  
  
_WHAP._  Box on a worktable, he took a cutter and pried the flaps open. Inside was a lot of packing peanuts, but hidden away underneath... was the Magnus. It came in its own smaller box, which frustrated Hawker. He wanted to fucking see it already! "This thing weighs like 6 pounds," he chuckled, pulling open one of the ends and teasing out the anti-static baggie the monster was housed inside.  
  
"Here it is... in as much glory its gonna get without having an Ares attached to it!"  
  
He pulled the rest of the wiring and components out of their packaging, laying them out neatly and within easy reach for Chris, who still was barely able to putter around. Then he takes his place on the adjacent slab, preps his systems, and the two get to work.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris started up in surprise as the door swung in hard and bounced off the stop. Hawker's size 22 boot had left a dent in the door.  
  
He could see Hawker's grin from HERE, and the excited intensity of the android only increased as they pull out item after item. THe dick though. Wow. It was pre-attached to replacement groinal plate but holy fuck it was big! "And that's the soft size too! I can't wait to see you strutting around, that think bouncing off those thighs of yours."  
  
Still, the young pilot is properly anal-retentive when it came to assembly. He'd read over the instructions twenty times, but the paper one sin the box he consulted as they laid out all the parts and pieces. "Hmmm. There's a bunch of connectors in a bag here. Won't use all of them, just the ones we'll need to bridge your haptic network. Have you downloaded the drivers yet? Got a copy on a thumb drive here."  
  
Five minutes of inventory and tool checking, and they had everything.  
  
"Up on the tabletop and spread your legs. And disable your sensor network, I don't want to short out your new dick! I can't afford a replacement."  
  
The old groin plate came off easily, Chris had lost count how many times he'd worshiped it. But he knew every square inch of that codpiece intimately. Inside were parts of the leg mechanisms, and a number of power and electrical connectors that he took a photo of with his phone before undoing the clips. "Just in case."  
  
There were five different wired bundles that plugged into the plate and two power connections. Also there were two connectors that had been capped and wrapped up with electrical tape. He'd need to tap into one of those.   
  
"Okay, why don't you hold The Magnus in place, and we'll see how much of a plug and play job this is gonna be?"

 

* * *

 

 

He laid down and spread his legs like a good giant killing machine. Meanwhile Chris looked over everything once, twice, pointing with a screwdriver as he checked off the list of parts in his mind. Adorable.  
  
_"And disable your sensor network, I don't want to short out your new dick!"_  
  
"Plenty of time to short it out later," he said with a wink. Still, the mech made extra sure his sensor nets were off from the waist down. If they bungled this, he'd never forgive himself.  
  
Before long, the thickly armored codpiece was off, discarded. Chris might've gotten a touch sentimental, but Hawker was ready to move on to the next best thing. He glanced down at his own insides - handsomely machined alloy gleamed under the florescent lights, color-coded wires wove in thick bundles around a cutting-edge metal substructure, and intricate ball-joint and vibration-dampening hip mechanisms - fascinating. Even there, a pair of small LED status lights winked happily.   
  
_"Okay, why don't you hold The Magnus in place, and we'll see how much of a plug and play job this is gonna be?"_  
  
"My pleasure."  
  
He took the ensemble - it felt so good in the hand already - and held it above himself with just enough clearance for Chris to see what he was doing under there. He was armed now with a pair of wire strippers, muttering to himself as he tried to recognize what was what, and taking many glances back at the printed instructions.  
  
Hawker took the opportunity to make sure he had all the drivers, that they were up-to-date, and that they mapped to his hardware properly.  
  
After a minute of doubt, Chris finally determined which side he'd need to tap into, and with deft fingers got to work preparing the mating surface of the wires. After that, the rest appeared to be downhill - plugs and adapters seemed to be standardized, and a short while later it was a tangled mess of colorful cables connecting the hovering groinal plate and flaccid  _fuckbeast_  to their new home. Hawker lowered the ensemble down as Chris worked to push the connectors out of the way, into whatever empty space the tightly-packed abdominal section had left, and eventually it all was seated.  
  
A few bolts later and Chris was sliding metal covers into place over them, creating that same near-seamless surface again, while Hawker onlined his sensors again. Then he got to work installing the rest of his drivers.  
  
\---  
  
The sudden surge of input data was  _immense_  - almost overpowering.  
  
"Holy shit," he grunted as he sat up, rubbing the side of his helmeted head. The readouts filled the edges of his awareness, but he ignored them for now. Because that surge?  
  
Well, it'd gone to a very special place.  
  
"Guess I'm happy to see you," he chuckled, looking down at his erection, straining, as it was, against the cool air of the room. Bobbing happy in Chris' direction. Diagnostics were looking good, calibration was practically unnecessary as his homonculous networks had immediately latched onto the smaller cock, his code 'remembering' the equipment like an old friend.  
  
Not that it wasn't.  
  
Hawker reached for the box of cartridges and grabbed one, holding it up between them as he cocked a brow. "Ready to arm your ol' war mech with some  _payload_?"

 

* * *

 

 

Chris was sweating, no not because he was nervous. Aching pains were shooting up his legs, his right arm would hurt like it'd been punched whenever he reached for a connector. That 10 inch monster dick flopped around lifelessly, and the fat and wholly appropriately sized nuts hug down with confidence.  
  
He used a grease pencil to check off each step of the process until he was sure he'd properly connected up the dick and powered it. He'd had to work hard to ensure all of the wiring would stay put, and not get caught in a leg joint. But it was all soon over, and he had the android operate the torque wrench on the bolts. WHile HAwker brought everything on line, Chris sat his weary bones back down.  
  
The cock had been huge in his hands, but now installed it looked _right_. Hawker needed something of that size, something that made him look HUNG. He found hismelf watching as everything got running.  
  
Then, it sprang to life. Chris whistled, impressed. "Mother of fuck. You're going to kill me with that." He reached out and touched, warm hand sliding over the realistic head, not able to get his fingers all the way around as he pulled back on the foreskin. "That had to be the best looking dick I've ever seen. Not quite the industrial look of the one in your 9081 chassis."  
  
"Why don't you lift up those nuts and I'll arm your new cannon?" Of course it was an excuse to give Hawker one of the greatest male pleasure. The equivalent of scratching himself. Those twin danglers got hauled up, and Celn popped the top off the canister and loaded it in place. There was a small hatch between hawker's legs, right on the taint. Inside was a single port that the canister fit into perfectly, and a much smaller tap for a water line. After prepping his boss up with vanilla, the twink grunted as he relaxed.  
  
"Good thing you had underwear in that shipment. I've seen smaller nightsticks." It's not that he isn't turned on by the new addition to his partner, Hawker can see and scan that the greenhorn is just plain scared of his Boss's new toy. THe worry that despite all of those promises, he was going to end up skewered.   
  
He should really trust his Captain more then that.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Mother of fuck. You're going to kill me with that."_  
  
Chris looked absolutely  _tiny_  next to him now. He had before but this was... better. Correct. Hawker imagined him sliding his tongue up and down the side of that length, getting his face smothered by that heavy sack. Panting and whimpering, ass clenching futilely as he slowly stuffed his inches up that tight hole. Watching as he disappeared into that quivering little meat body...  
  
Then the whimpering turns to hissing, crying. Maybe his boy reaches back to try and put his fist between him and being hilted as he goes rigid with pain. Maybe he begs. Maybe he cries out about being "serious this time!". Maybe a good ol' "Stop! You're hurting me!" for good measure. " _Hawker, please!_ "  
  
The cock jumped away from Chris' fingers for a second as he imagined the trickle of blood running down his thigh.  
  
_That's not what he wants,_  he reminded himself, and came back to reality.  
  
_"Why don't you lift up those nuts and I'll arm your new cannon?"_  
  
He bent his knees and cupped his junk to heft it up and away from that spotlessly clean machine taint. God, even grabbing his own balls felt amazing, though the homonculous system was still catching up with those - the 9081 didn't have any - but he was  _sure_  that it was only going to get better as he learned the new anatomy inside and out.  
  
A little click, a little pressure, and the cartridge was in. He felt the feed lines prime themselves with the vanilla cum, loading up a serving into those balls. About 1.5 fluid ounces per load (adjustable, of course), and XL-sized cartridge had 6. The sensation of his nuts filling was  _amazing_.  
  
_"Good thing you had underwear in that shipment. I've seen smaller nightsticks."_  He fished around the box some more and found them: black mid-thigh boxers, triple-reinforced around the crotch. He slid them out of the plastic and unfurled the garment. They'd ordered a jock too, but it seemed like a good idea to start with the conservative.  
  
"Should have just gotten a MOLLE holster system instead. Strapped it down like a sidearm," he chuckled, hopping off the slab.   
  
Hawker stood tantalizingly close to Chris with that thing, quite enjoying himself. But Chris reaction wasn't... what he was looking for either. When he put a hand on the boy's shoulder, he noticed the quickened heartbeat accompanied by cool, not warm, skin. The mech willed himself flaccid, and like a deflating balloon it began to droop and shorten to a  _meager_  10 inches. Another bonus to being a machine: only getting hard when you wanted to.  
  
It's not like they could rush upstairs for a rough morning fuck with the shape his pilot was in, but: "We forgot lube," Hawker said with quiet disappointment, his air cycling heaving a sigh as he stepped into the boxers and hoisted him up. The fabric clung to him like wet paper, showing off every shapely curve and bulge, but when it came to the Magnus... it was barely better than nothing! He liked the look, but it wasn't exactly  _civilian_  friendly. He reached down in there to adjust it some more. Maybe the other leg would look better.  
  
After fiddling with it for a few seconds, he stood back, arms out. "Well, kid, what d'you think?"

 

* * *

 

 

Chris watched as those low-hanger pressurised. It was vulgar and perverse. And damn, he felt a little turned on by how the swelled up to their full size! Aroused, they hand drawn up to the base of that fat phallus. He could easily imagine they would feel smacking into him  
  
Off his chin or in between his legs.  
  
He couldn't help it, he had to touch, to feel the prodigious size as it relaxed back down to it's resting state, still in double digits. He smiled a little. "It fits you perfect Hawker. Merry Christmas."  
  
There the is the fun of watching the way the straps of the jock hugged the Ares's fine behind,a the way the pouched BULGED with that monstrous shaft. It is a mouth-watering sight. Maybe as long as the weapon wasn't deployed, Chris could at least let his heart pound.  
  
_"We forgot lube."_  
  
"I'm sure we can get some. Going to need it by the gallon with you now. We need a quiet place, I want to help you." THen he had a real smile. "I want to see you just sitting down, I want to watch you stroke, want to have you aim this at me and just plaster my face. Ya know, just witness you enjoying yourself. Like a man can. The personal freedom you never had before."  
  
He wasn't sure if he'd just created a sex fiend or the ultimate husbando. But either way, he knew who is first in line to stuff his stocking.  
  
"I think it's perfect!" he explained, a huge smile on his face. "I'm scared too. Scared of how much time I'm going to spend spread and filled by that." he gestured, reaching out and feeling over the fesh fabric. "But fuck! I love it, it's so you. Huge, thick and intimidating. Try not to break me any worse then I am now, and I'll be the happiest guy in the world."  
  
Having returned the room to the organised chaos before they'd started, they'd broken down the boxes and gathered up everything into a duffel bag. Chris used the same antistatic bag that the dick had come in to house the old codpiece. "We need to get to your gantry. Should store your old groin plate and see if your pants and boots are hanging out in a nearby crate." As the pilot hobbled on his crutches, Hawker removed the chair from the doors. A quick peek outside reveal that at this hour most of the techs and engineers were still in bed or getting breakfast.  
  
Chris did his best to move along, using both feet as a rest as he rested his weight on the pads that came up under the elbows. His right hand gave him trouble but he managed. Plus now he got to follow his boss. That fat bulge hung down between the powerful hips, he could see it from behind! Magnificent.  
  
They stashed the plate with the other Ares 3 spare parts and maintenance equipment. Where the hell were the other accessories? Most of the Alcove was filled with the disassembled 9081 and it's various upgrades.  
  
\---  
  
Sarah Colburn enjoyed the early mornings. Most of the techs tended to prefer a late schedule, often working into the evening hours. Thirty minutes ago she'd pulled on her overalls and looked over her unending task list. Coffee in one hand, phone in the other, she casually strolled toward the end alcove. Becker had been complaining that the low-end interface she'd set up was substandard. She happened to think that the cocky pilot just didn't have what it took to make the vanguard fly.  
  
No matter his flaws and the unhealthy relationship with Hawker, a pilot of Chris's natural abilities was about as rare as the 9081. She just hope that they..  
  
"Not here either." The deep rumble of the Ares 3.  
  
"FUCK! I'm sorry, I have to sit down.." the exasperated tone of Celn.  
  
She slowed down her pace and carefully peer around the corner. They were rooting through boxes?   
  
Clearing her throat, she had a half smile on her face as she sauntered in. "And just what are you two.." Hawker's Ares 3 Chassis stood up and she saw..  **IT**.

 

* * *

 

 

Where the  _hell_  were those BDUs the Ares shipped with?  
  
They'd gone through every storage compartment in its gantry, every storage compartment for the 9081, and were now going through the boxes that came with the rest of the army's gift basket of hand-me-downs. They were  _nowhere to be found_.  
  
He was still in those boxers, hung like a horse and loving every minute of it, but he knew that humans had their hangups about "politesse" and "decorum" and "indecent exposure". And he wasn't about ready to let himself get gawked at by crews of easily-offended techs. Or easily-offended Beckers.  
  
_"FUCK! I'm sorry, I have to sit down.."_  
  
Chris was looking very uncomfortable in those crutches - they were putting load-bearing pressure on parts of his body that weren't designed to sustain such. The kid sat down with a hiss and a wince on the edge of the 9081's raised slab, throwing in the towel for now.  
  
Hawker nodded in his direction. "Yeah, get off your feet for now. I'll... keep looking, I guess. Thanks, kiddo."  
  
Just then, footsteps.  
  
"just what are you two..."  
  
The mech's head jerked in Colburn's direction - he could pick that voice out of a crowd of rioters, he knew it so well. As soon as she'd caught a glimpse of him: " _GOOD GOD!_ " she shouted with surprise. Her coffee tumbler fell to the floor with a loud KLANG, and the liquid caffeine went everywhere. It splashed her across the legs and she hissed in pain, cursing some more and hopping away from the puddle like it might do it again.  
  
Hawker just stood, frozen. When he remembered himself, his hands went to his crotch in a  _very_  belated bid at modesty. But even the enormous hands of the Ares weren't enough to block the view of that schlong through the fabric.  
  
"Uh... Chief, I can explain."  
  
Colburn was wiping her hands on her black-streaked overalls, still hissing from being scalded. "What..." she began, still too startled, confused, and appalled to get out the sentence in one go. "What the  _hell_  did you do to that Ares!"  
  
Hawker remained collected, trying to speak calmly. "Chris and I thought it might be fun if we -"  
  
"You  _and_  Chris?" Her hazel eyes, looked from one troublemaker to the other. Chris shrugged weakly. "Chris," she plead, face twisted in horror. "Chris. There's no way you could..." Colburn tried again. "It couldn't  _possibly_..." She shook her head, rubbed at her temples. "Just... please. For the love of all that is good in this world, Chris. Of all the ways you could hurt yourself, I'm  _begging_  you. Don't... OK? Just  _don't!_ "  
  
She dared another look at Hawker, who stood there like an Olympian bodybuilder, and her eyes wandered hesitatingly down...  
  
But Colburn covered her eyes like she'd been painfully blinded.  
  
"Augh! Put some goddamn pants on already, Christ!" She turned her back to him and continued talking. "You want to be more human, Nine? Well, it's time to start playing by some of our rules!"  
  
"In my defense, ma'am, we  _were_  looking for the pants."  
  
They...? Oh. The pants.  
  
She'd thrown them into the back of a drawer in her workshop. Hawker had made such a stink about wearing a costume for the Halloween party that she assumed he'd never even  _consider_  wearing  _normal_  garments.  
  
Colburn huffed, groaned, and just generally made all sorts of frustrated sounds. She turned around, and, blocking the view of his crotch with an outstretched hand like it was a floodlight, she quickly passed them and headed for the elevator. "If this is Christmas," she mumbled, "Then  _bah-humbug_."

 

* * *

 

 

"I'll be back in a few minutes, try not to scare anyone else!" she growled, deciding on getting areplacment coffee. Seriously, she came in early to avoid problems like this.  
  
8 Days. That's all it had took before they two of them got Hawker equipped for action. Then another thought hit her as the elevator went up. They had a formal dinner in less than a week, and CHris wanted that 6' 10" robot-turned-pornstar to be his date.  
  
\---  
  
Chris had been silent the whole exchange. His lips are pulled tight across his face and he seems to be holding his breath. It was only  _after_  Colburn turned and stomped off that he began to laugh. ANd laughing hurt, so he had to drop the crutches and hold onto his stomach.  
  
"Did.. oh gods.. did you.. hahaha.. see her face?" he chortled, wiping his eyes, face red with mirth. "Oh I can't wait. You.. oh wow.. have to keep me around when you reveal. That's amazing!"  
  
He felt a twisted sense of pride. That schlong is his too, dammit! He paid for it. And it made Hawker a hunk in every sense of the work. Strong, handsome, and now apparently terrifying below the belt. It was kinda scary, hard and throbbing when it's intent on entering YOU!  
  
"So I have two thoughts." He began, after he'd stopped his wheezing laugh. "First, we need to talk to Preston. And by we I mean you." The Ares did a head-tilt, and with those ears, looking adorably like a puppy trying to understand calculus. "Look, he's been right up on me when we're at the range. I've felt what he's got. He can give you tips for how to deal with being a man of size." Those yellow optics gave a glare, and Chris help up a finger.   
  
"Of course I think he's hot!" he explained. "He's like.. 90% the size of you and all natural. And he love to intimidate by getting up close and personal! It's funny as fuck when Becker gets his stance corrected. I know it's all I can do not to lean into Preston hard. I think he likes me."  
  
With a sigh, he just shakes his head. "And two, we got to get ourselves fitted for clothes. Gonna have to rent, because you've wiped out what I've got extra for the month." He slowly reached over to pick up a crutch with his good hand, sticking out a leg to counterbalance the pivoting action. "I hope Colburn turns up with some boots. While you might get a squit by sheer chance, there's no way they carry footwear for those war stompers of yours."  
  
Still he had to smile. Colburn had said it. Hawker is becoming more human. And Chris knew he wanted to help bring the big bot on that journey. He wanted to see the hunk turn into someone relatable. SOmeone with skill and depth outside of his job. Someone who lived his life. And hopefully, lived that life with his pilot at his side.  
  
He still had that smile on his face when Colburn came back.

 

* * *

 

 _"Oh I can't wait. You.. oh wow.. have to keep me around when you reveal. That's amazing!"_  
  
Chris' laughter was contagious, and eventually Hawker let out a long snort and shook his head.  
  
But then he started talking about Preston, and the mech had this look on his face like he was going to hang Chris by his ankles if he didn't elaborate.  
  
_"I've felt what he's got. He can give you tips for how to deal with being a man of size."_  
  
The shit was this, now?  
  
_"I know it's all I can do not to lean into Preston hard. I think he likes me."_  
  
Hawker grunted, folded his arms. "Well what's not to like."  
  
_"And two, we got to get ourselves fitted for clothes. Gonna have to rent, because you've wiped out what I've got extra for the month."_  
  
He stroked his chin, that seemed reasonable enough. For 8 years Hawker hadn't given a single thought to the particulars of fashion, and it was becoming obvious that he'd need to develop some kind of taste in clothing ASAP. Couldn't exactly show up to the reception having raided somebody's SWAT locker, although he probably  _would_  feel most comfortable in that. He wondered briefly about the viability of a suit made from milspec cordura and chuckled to himself.  
  
"Custom clothes are one thing," he knew he could safely speak on. "But you need deep pockets for custom  _shoes_." A hum and a haw. "Don't think Mayor Daily should mind if I show up in BDUs. If that actor kid - Jesse Oliver? Oliveri? Whatever - if that actor kid can get away with Converse on the red carpet, I can too."  
  
Then he looked Chris' way, admiring for a second the resilient form of his pilot. He took a step closer, shoulder touching his elbow. "Hey." He waited for him to look his direction. "I'll make this worth every penny for you. I promise." Then he captured his chin in a firm hold and gave him an insistent kiss.  
  
The cock strained the faintest bit against the fabric of those boxers.   
  
\---  
  
Colburn returned quickly, looking relieved to find the motor pool still empty as she threw the plastic bag at him. "On. Now. And if they don't fit, then I'm putting in my two weeks because I can't work under these conditions."  
  
Hawker laughed as he ripped open the bag and shook out the pants. He had a 38-inch waist, sure - but that measurement was a pittance compared to his 57-inch chest. He turned around for Colburn's sake as he stepped into the heavy-duty, combat-ready garment, and snapped together the belt. It was nicer than expected. The thighs were double-layered and sported their own stripes MOLLE mounting points, the knees were thickly padded, and there were deep pockets everywhere. The dusty tan digital camo pattern was classy enough - at least they weren't a solid color in anything but black.  
  
The Chief also tossed the boots his way, too. She'd had one enormous boot under each arm, and they hit the concrete near his bare feet with loud thuds. When he picked them up, it was obvious as to why: they each weighed at least 5 pounds! They were tan too, and he quickly strapped them on, tying off the laces like he knew what he was doing.  
  
When he was done, his 6'10" at the scullcap became a solid 7". There was no way Kole was letting him in his office now.  
  
Hawker looked down at himself, moving his hips around to see what he could see. The bulge was still plainly obvious, but at least he looked a  _little_  more presentable.  
  
"Looks like you're still clocking in tomorrow after all, Chief," he said, rather pleased. " _I've_  got no complaints, how about you two?"

 

* * *

  

Chris wolf-whistled at the handsome robot. What's not to like, indeed!   
  
Colburn had herself a second coffee. She took a long sip as she glared at Hawker, then shook her head. "Not the dumbest purchase I've seen from a rookie. But definitely the one that's going to cause the most damage. And that's more than Becker's GSX 1050 RR." Her jumpsuit rustled as she moseyed over to a cobbled together interface system. Many of the wires and cables snaked up into the hulking torso of the HLX-9 as it hung from the gantry. Sitting down at the tech station, she armed it and motioned with a hand. "Celn, come over here. I know you're on leave, but seeing as how you're using department assets..."


	22. Tailor-Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the suit-shopping.

As the chair fired up, it ran through the motions of accepting a pilot. Familiar motions to Hawker.  
  
"I copied the DF2 for Dr. Morris. This is a sim that's piggybacking on the proper HLX hardware, running it." SHe watched as Chris hobbled his way over. The crutches made little squeaks on the smooth concrete of Hawker's concrete slab. "We've been trying to get Becker acclimated. But he keeps telling us the interface is not operating correctly."  
  
Chris gently sat down in the seat, which began sizing itself for his short frame. He laid them on a nearby cardboard box, then turned to the Chief Engineer. "You want me to run some tests?"  
  
Sarah nodded up and down. "Just sit back and relax. This is just configuration tests. Not actually interacting with the copy of the DF2 that's in the simulator."  
  
The well-worn pilot grunted as he leaned back. The chair shifted up and fit him, the spike of the interface piercing the fresh implant. Chris twitched as he closed his eyes, groaning softly as he fell into the world of neurospace.  
  
To Hawker, the chair operated in a  _very_  familiar fashion. He could almost feel it, the sensation of his pilot plugging in. Whatever altered copy of his own mind was in that system, running through his disassembled chassis, got to feel Chris close. Chris's eyes began to move under his eyelids and his hands twitched.   
  
"He's in. SHould be about ten minutes." Colburn tapped at the console, adjusting little sections of the interface's settings.  
"It's hard for me to think about. You two as a couple." she admitted, left hand moving her coffee cup with a practiced move while the right typed one-handed. "I hate remembering what you did. That Celn said he wanted it to happen."  
  
She looked hard at the Ares chassis. "Hearing his last words before he got hit by the Taser, in your back box." she sighed, rubbing her chin against the plastic top of the disposable coffee cup. "And you're just there now, with him all the time. Seven feet of ass-kicking machine watching over him. Wish I could believe that was a good thing."  
  
More tapping on the tech console. Chris seemed to be trying to walk as he lay there, the automatic sections under his legs whirring and adjusting. "At some point I'm going to have to apologize to you. Probably when I do a payout on the betting pool. I'd bet that'd make your day." she admitted.

 

* * *

 

 _"Not the dumbest purchase I've seen from a rookie. But definitely the one that's going to cause the most damage. And that's more than Becker's GSX 1050 RR._  
  
Hawker snorted, remembering. "Didn't he crash that thing a month after he got it? Bitched about the cost of repairs for weeks!"  
  
 _"Celn, come over here. I know you're on leave, but seeing as how you're using department assets."  
  
"Just sit back and relax. This is just configuration tests. Not actually interacting with the copy of the DF2 that's in the simulator."_  
  
The mech's optics followed Chris as he hobbled over to the jury-rigged interface and strapped in. The thing hooked itself up and he watched the sequence with a little fascination. He'd never get tired of seeing the faint twitch of his pilot's face when the needle seated itself in his neck.  
  
As Chris' eyes moved, Hawker glanced up to the huge, stern face of the #9081, and saw the optics flicker in time.  
  
Becker was full of shit, and everyone knew it. Their compatibility was in the pits, and due in no small part to the man's ego. Hawker could work with just about anybody so long as they knew their  _place_.  
  
 _"It's hard for me to think about. You two as a couple."_  
  
The question had come out of left field, and the mech jerked his head in Colburn's direction, and bringing himself out of the lean he'd settled into against the foot of the gantry. "A couple," he grunted, thumbing at his chin. He turned the idea over in his CPUs. "I guess that's what we are, huh."  
  
 _"I hate remembering what you did. That Celn said he wanted it to happen."_  
  
Her voice was very quiet as her eyes flicked in his direction, as hard as his Ares chassis' armored skin. They stood like that for a few breaths, his bright yellow optics sizing her up as she bared down on him. The Chief Engineer of precinct 42 would have been right at home in the #9081 just as much as he was.  
  
 _"And you're just there now, with him all the time. Seven feet of ass-kicking machine watching over him. Wish I could believe that was a good thing."_  
  
"Nobody asked you to understand it, Chief," he said with that rumbling bass.  
  
Then, something he never thought he'd hear:  
  
 _"At some point I'm going to have to apologize to you. Probably when I do a payout on the betting pool. I'd bet that'd make your day."_  
  
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but his thumb was still at his chin. "Apologize when it comes, Chief. I don't want it any sooner. And ah... about that pool." He 'cleared' his throat, optics settling on the floor as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his BDU pants. "I'd appreciate it if that were shut down, ma'am. I don't like the idea that people have money on my pi..." Hawker paused, realizing that there was a better word for what this was. Was it better? 'Pilot' was a term that, properly bestowed, carried a tremendous weight. But this was a different sort of weight, wasn't it? He corrected himself. "My... my  _boyfriend_. I don't like money riding on him kicking the goddamn bucket. It was cute before  _that_  happened." Hawker gestured with a jerk of his head in the direction of Chris' crutches. "Now it's just fuckin' disrespectful."  
  
Colburn chuckled a little, sighed a little, glanced over her coffee at Chris still in the seat. "You're right," she said. "You're totally right. I'll make sure Kole sends out a memo."  
  
A little more silence.  
  
"So when do Chris and I get to find out what those HLX-6s were doing at the bottom of Wolf Lake?"  
  
Colburn's shoulders slumped a little and her mouth did that thing it does when she's thinking about something she doesn't want to do. "Soon enough. We've kept you in the dark about it so far, but... Kole's been in touch with some of the agencies regarding renegotiation of the project contract. It's been 6 months since Lee... passed."  
  
Hawker remained stock still as he stared at the floor. "So it has."  
  
"They want to talk to you and Chris in person," Colburn all but muttered, doing something with the diagnostic screens again as Chris twitched in the chair like he was having a dream. "A few matters of national security to discuss now."  
  
"I'd damn well hope so," the mech huffed, standing up straight. He began to pace in a slow circle, both thinking and distantly enjoying the new sensations that having realistic equipment was providing. "I don't like that they knew me, Colburn. I don't like that one fucking bit."  
  
"Nobody does, Nine. Had people asking me for a week why you know Russian. Why they kept calling you Ishcheyka. Why you..." The woman sucked in a breath and shook her head. Clearly, she was remembering how the two of them had crushed that pilot to death.  
  
"There's still a lot  _I_  don't know too."  
  
"Good. At least  _some_  of those ablated memories didn't grow back." She let out a long, quiet breath through her nose and fixed her eyes on the screen, though Hawker knew she was seeing something else. Her voice changed, then. "The Hawker you've become would be horrified to know the things I know. The things I saw when I had to pick through those memories and tweeze them out, one by one."  
  
He stopped his pacing and looked at her. "You...?"  
  
She nodded. "Not even Kole did it with me. And Lee hadn't even been recruited yet. He was still up in Alaska piloting his TEK-5 Rockweaver and working with a DF1."  
  
"I'm... sorry," was all he could think of to say. He didn't wish that imagery on anyone here - not even Becker.  
  
When their eyes met again, a tear stained her cheek. "No.  _I'm_  sorry," Colburn murmured, before wiping her face and getting back to work.   
  
Hawker would eventually come to know just what she meant by that.

 

* * *

 

 

At first it was like any first time in a neurospace simulator. Align the grid so it looks square. Are these colors displaying correctly relative to their names? Can you feel this?  
  
Chris calmly went through the steps and questions, navigating the basic environmental scenarios with ease.  
  
He is standing in a corridor, at a shooting range that looked like it belonged in TRON. He held a collection of polygons that represented a rifle and brought it to his shoulder. Lining up the sites, he shot at glittering balls of light that bounced downrange. Each one exploded in a miniature firework display, "At least it doesn't hurt to stand here." he muttered to himself.  
  
"Range test complete. Please wait while next simulation loads." spoke the dispassionate voice of the sim-chair computer.  
  
Chris waited on a floor that had no walls, just darkness all around. He could feel it now. The copy of the DF2, whatever variant of Hawker that Colburn had made. Was it Hawker? Maybe it was just any DF2--  
  
The floor below him went from looking like concrete, to transparent concrete. And below that is the unmistakable face of Hawker's HLX-9 Chassis. It reached up, stroking over the transparent material. Then a hand pointed at Chris, before pointing at it's stomach. It grinned hungrily, running a tongue over it's lips.  
  
"Beginning full environmental test. Please interact with your surroundings." droned the sim-chair voice.  
  
Suddenly Chris stood on a sidewalk on his left is a row of buildings, on his right a street. Fake people move about, things that represented cars and trucks drove up and down the street. Overhead the sun shown brightly and made everything feel warm. He tried to open a door on the nearest building, but it wouldn't budge. Walking down the sidewalk, everything seemed perfectly normal. But he could sense the DF2, observing hungrily. Held back by protocols and the flimsy illusion of neurospace. It peered at him through TV screens in a shop as he passed by. It's glowing eyes tracked him from the street drain as it watched from below.  
  
Whatever that was, it wasn't Hawker anymore. But it knew him. It wanted its pilot.  
  
Chris reached the end of the street, the sun set at the edge of an infinite flat horizon. Behind him the cityscape vanished. He again stood on that flat surface. This time the vanguard stood on the same surface. It reached for him before encountering a cube of force that made up the transnational space the human occupied. It's huge hands gripped at the cube, struggling with the neurospace construct; trying to rend it open!  
  
"Beginning desynchronization. Please relax." drone the chair's uncaring tone.  
  
THe Vanguard let out a pained howl, smashing it's potent fists into the lines of code that kept it from what it wanted. Chris lifted a hand, putting it on the same surface.  
  
The massive machine dropped to it's knees, one hand on the blackness of the  _beyond_  the other sprawled on the cube's transparent surface just a millimeter from touching the tender flesh. It's face confused, unsure, unable to remember why it  **NEEDED**  the small human.   
  
\------------------  
  
"I didn't see everything." admitted Colburn, her voice soft as she tried to banish those dark memories. "Whoever had used you in Russia had scrubbed your databanks and memories with a brute force purge."   
  
Her hands moved over the controls, the DF2 copy was reacting strangely. It was peaking at higher levels then it'd ever managed with Becker. And Chris wasn't even technically interfacing with  _it_. He was just skirting the peripheries. She double-checked the barriers and felt satisfied. Whatever was going on, the two were not able to interact with each other.  
  
"I had to stitch your mind back together from whatever was left. Lee provided so much, do you remember those early days when he put you through 'bootcamp?'" She shook her head as happier times came to mind. "Remember when you thought you needed to ask permission before you turned right?"  
  
Her eyes flicked back over to the readouts. The DF2 copy was repeatedly attempting to initiate an interface with Celn, at the rate of 10 times a second. Her thumb mashed the shutdown sequence on the interface.  
  
\---------  
  
Chris awoke with a start! He tried to sit up and immediately let out a pained groan before flopping back into the chair. "ooooowwww..."   
  
Colburn looked at the display one last time as the systems continued to deactivate. The requests continued over and over and over until the DF2 went into forced hibernation. She exhaled her held breath. "Well, you did fine from my vantage point. Did you have any trouble with the simulation or the neurospace environments?" She rolled her chair over and smiled down at Chris, patting his good shoulder.  
  
"Ughf." Celn swallowed. "Was a bit off at first. But it felt pretty natural for training stuff."  
  
"Good. How do you get along with Becker? Scuttlebutt is that it's like oil and water." Colburn mildly inquired.  
  
Chris blinked at the abrupt change of topic. "I uh.. He's never been kind too me Ma'am. Think he hates my guts. And I'm no doormat." he half shrugged, pushing himself up. "So yeah, we don't mix."  
  
Colburn did a sharp exhale through her nose. "I'll talk to him. If he's going to be Hawker's backup he needs to listen to you about piloting."  
  
"That's not gonna work. I'm a rookie, he's a .. what?, a five year pilot?" Chris glanced over to Hawker. He could tell the robot was trying to figured out how to stand with something between it's legs. "He has to respect me. THat's just how guys like that work."  
  
"And just what would he respect, greenhorn?"  
  
Chris flexed his left arm, the only limb that'd been spared the Taser. He had a modest bicep flex. "Strength! Think I can take him?" He got into a sitting strongman pose and did his best to look impressive.  
  
By the laughter from both her and Hawker, the answer was pretty obvious.  
  
"Yeah, I don't think so either. Least not in a way that he'd accept." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Hell if I know." he got up on his feet, resting the crutches under his arms. "Maybe you can just have us dual it out in neurospace. Or have him undergo specialist ratings? Just run our numbers up in medical."  
  
Colburn chuckled. "I'll think of something. Meanwhile, you rest up and get fitted for that dinner. And it's suit and tie."  
  
Chris tested his footing and clinked over to Hawker. "C'mon. I gotta get something warmer on if we're going out. Any luck with places that rent clothes out for robots? I think you're a bit more then a 'Big a& Tall' would carry."

 

* * *

 

 

The real Hawker had no idea what Chris was experiencing with his facsimile self - from the outside, it looked like any other pilot hooked up to any other neurospace environment.  
  
 _"Whoever had used you in Russia had scrubbed your databanks and memories with a brute force purge."_  
  
The mech nodded, thinking. The memories he did have were vague, dream-like. Most things lacked detail, and the details he  _did_  remember were atmospheric. The sharp sting of waste fluids. The peculiar look to old blood stains on unfinished concrete. The rattle of dry bread on ration trays. The dull scraping of icy fingers against iron bars. The yellowish tint neurospace takes when your pilot is full of dispassionate malice.  
  
He couldn't remember names or faces. Those must have been taken care of long before Colburn got to him. He'd had 4 pilots before Lee, Kole had told him - all dead. Who were they? In his own imagination, his own neurospace, he lined them up next to each other. The first in the white winter camo of the invading ground troops, his hand positioned in a salute with a helmet under his arm. The next three, a more familiar gray digital pattern on their similarly winterized BDUs. One of them had fingers - blackened from frostbite - stuck in the loops of his cartridge belt instead of ammo. Their heads all completely obscured; blurred and featureless.  
  
 _"I had to stitch your mind back together from whatever was left. Lee provided so much, do you remember those early days when he put you through 'bootcamp?' Remember when you thought you needed to ask permission before you turned right?"_  
  
He smiled a little too, chuckled. "I asked permission to do everything in those days. 'Permission to close hatches, sir.' 'Permission to step down from the gantry, sir.'" His chuckling blossomed into full laughter at this one: "'Permission to speak  _freely_ , sir!'"  
  
Colburn laughed too. "'Aw cut the crap, Nine. This is a police station, not the FCC censure office!'" she said, trying her best to mimic Lee's words. She did a good job.  
  
Her attention was drawn to the screen, though, at the same time that something brushed up against him like a distant echo through 42's servers, across the wifi. Then just like that, it was gone. What the hell was that? Hawker stood straight suddenly, and turned to Chris, who was coming out of synchonization.  
  
\---  
  
They talked about Becker for a little bit, and Hawker bit back a disapproving growl. They'd only done two sessions since Chris got out of medical, but they never ended well.  
  
\---  
  
 _4 days ago, upstairs._  
  
“Dammit, Hawker!” Becker shouted, jumping up from his chair in the neurospace operations room as soon as he’d been physically disconnected from the system. This lab didn’t see too much use - it was basically a sim room for the scabs. The same place where Hawker had first encountered Chris on that dreary day back in October, not expecting anything from that set of fresh scabs, with their shiny shoes and pressed slacks.   
  
Hawker knew Chris was special the moment that he  _ducked_. Turns out he was S-class.  
  
Becker, on the other hand? Becker was trying to punch  _back!_  
  
The big pilot huffed, folding his arms like a petulant child as he started down the Ares frame seated next to the neurspace interface, a single thick cable protruding from his own neck and plugged into the machine.   
  
“What’s the problem, shitbird?” the mech rumbled, his tone stand-offish even as he appeared to be at ease. Yellow optics just barely lifted to meet the pilot’s scrutiny.  
  
“The  _problem_  is that you won’t let me do my fucking  _job, **sir**._ ”  
  
“Oh, you mean pilot?”  
  
He threw his hands up in the air. “YES!” He growled under his breath, then looked to the tech at the console. “You seeing this? You see how he’s treating me? Jesus H Christ!”  
  
Hawker rose up now. In his BDUs, even someone as intimidatingly built at Lieutenant Cory Becker stood scarcely taller than chin-high. “I treat people how they want to be treated. Act like a piece of shit and I’ll treat you like a piece of shit,  _officer_.”  
  
Becker’s nostrils flared. A vein was becoming visible on the side of his head and he angrily ran his fingers through his blond hair like he had lice. He looked to Hawker, then to the tech - who just shrugged - and then to the chair, before he sat back down in it.  
  
“Again,” he barked, wincing as the needle seated in his spinal column for the 12th time that day. “We’re doing this again.”  
  
Hawker snorted, shook his head and sat back down. “It’s  _your_  implant.”  
  
They were going nowhere at this rate.  
  
\---  
  
 _"He has to respect me. That's just how guys like that work."_  
  
"Seniority  _does_  mean something around here. Unfortunately, I can't say that's a bad thing," he muttered.  
  
 _"And just what would he respect, greenhorn?"_  
  
Hawker laughed and shook his head at Chris' display. Still a far cry from Becker's thigh-thick biceps, but he  _was_  packing on the muscle quite nicely if he did say so himself. Give it another year or two and he'd be able to fill out one of Lee's old suits just fine. As for the 'old man' himself? Lee could get the lieutenant into a submission in seconds flat, any day and any time.  
  
 _"Maybe you can just have us dual it out in neurospace. Or have him undergo specialist ratings? Just run our numbers up in medical."_  
  
The mech reached down to adjust himself a little as he readied their things to leave. "That sounds up my alley," Hawker said with a little mischief touching the edges of his voice. "A one-on-one hockey match in neurospace," he cackled. "Fighting not just allowed, but encouraged! How's it sound, huh? Yours truly as both goalies and ref?" The idea wasn't going to fly obviously, but he knew that something was going to have to give. "Either way, something needs to set the shitbird straight. He's got an  _inferiority_  complex with Chris, and a  _superiority_  complex with  _me_. If he doesn't remember his place in the pecking order around here,  _somebody_  is going to do something that they'll regret. Guaranteed."  
  
 _"I'll think of something. Meanwhile, you rest up and get fitted for that dinner. And it's suit and tie."  
  
"C'mon. I gotta get something warmer on if we're going out. Any luck with places that rent clothes out for robots? I think you're a bit more then a 'Big & Tall' would carry."_  
  
Hawker's hand found its way to Chris' back, and he rubbed a small circle as they moseyed on over to the elevator. "We'll have to start someplace, kiddo. The real question is if I'll be able to fit in an uber," he chuckled. "I'm gonna run upstairs to see Kole real quick while you get bundled up, alright?" Then he turned back to the Chief, threw his hand in the air. "You deserve a medal, Colburn," he called to her with a grin. "And I mean it."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Don't mention it." A short pause as she folded her arms. "No really. Don't mention  _IT_. Or I'll have Costa lecturing you on workplace decency faster than you can say 'I'm sorry!'"  
  
The pair roared with laughter as the elevator doors closed behind them.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris pressed the button for 8, while Hawker flicked the one for top offices.  
  
"Oh man. Gonna have fun with you tonight." He grinned as he heavily leaned on his crutches. In the semi-reflective doors of the elevator, he could see their silhouettes. THe massive machine and the small man. He felt safe. Happy. "If you can't get some kinda suit, maybe I should take Becker." he teased. Then he click-clacked over and nudged his shoulder into the big bot's elbow. "Good to see you happy too, makes me think there's a chance for us to work."  
  
The doors opened for his stop and Chris hobbled off. "See ya big guy."   
  
Thankfully the commor pilot area is empty and not one had to watch him do that one-legged hop to his room. At least now he had progressed beyond bandages, but his muscles and tendons still ached from the damage. Getting clothes from the closet, just got changed in the small space where he could lean on the walls. Socks and boots though, those took ages to get on an laced. Then he had to pull himself up, hand over hand to climb back to his feet. Jeans, undershirt, sweatshirt, heavy coat and gloves in hand. He gave walking a good three steps before the aching pains in his calves had him scrabbling for crutches. Coming out of his room, he wasn't alone.  
  
Jane pushed a hand through her hair, getting her braid done as she listened to Ferdinand. "... and then Steve walks in. And, you know Steve, he slugs Becker right on the shoulder to say hi."  
  
"The right one, right?" asked Jane, her uniform looking clean and fresh for her stint on night shift.  
  
"Yeah. He's been really hitting the range lately, trying to up his rifle groupings. So Steve gets him right on the bruise. And B's been pissed because Nine is busting his ass. So he and Steve had a little tussle."  
  
Jane raised an eyebrow. "How'd that go?"  
  
"Didn't really. Steve got Becker in a lock 'till he calmed down. Hey Celn, where you off to?"  
  
Chris grinned. "Gonna get some threads!"

"Nice, whyfor?" inquired Jane.  
  
"Some sorta fancy-ass party. I get to be some rank & file, I guess."  
  
"Sweet. Eat all the fancy food and go wild if it's an open bar." added Ferdinand.  
  
"Ha! I wish. I got a feeling it'll be speaches and fancy people doing fancy things."  
  
"Fancy foooood! Like, with doilies and multiple forks. Better brush up on your table manners." grinned Jane. "I'm not joking, you eat like someone's going to steal it."  
  
Chris blinked. "Why would you need more then one fork?  
  
Both Jane and Ferdinand laughed, he facepalmed. "Oh man, you need help. At least watch some youtube tutorials if someone can't help you out."  
  
Chris got on the lift, and rode it down to ground level. He'd get a cab once he knew Hawker was on the way.  
  
\------------------  
  
Hawker had to crouch noticeably to get inside Kole's office this time.  
  
"Are you growing on me, Captain?" grumbled the Sergeant; eyeing the massive and partially clothed machine.  
  
After hearing the response he nodded.  
  
"To avoid taxes, liability and wage garnishment; I am not paying you." He pushed a heavy manilla envelope across his desk where it stopped before Hawker's outstretched hand. "You are getting a budget. Not huge, not what a Captain would normally make; but enough to keep you entertained. Purchases will go through finance and it's a yearly amount broken up with a monthly allotments. So don't spend it all in one place."  
  
Leaning back in his leather chair, Gideon listened to the machine talk; watching those lips move. "Now, about this dinner. You're going to be civil. Celn is going to behave. Any questions?"

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Are you growing on me, Captain?"_  
  
Hawker chuckled. "Be glad I don't have a taste for heels, sir."  
  
But the sergeant had his mind on other things than jokes.  
  
 _"To avoid taxes, liability and wage garnishment; I am not paying you."_  
  
The mech cocked a brow plate at the sight of the envelope, plucking it up when it neared his edge of the desk and peered inside. Optics flashed brightly for a second before his face stretched into an astonished frown.  
  
Bills. It was all Jacksons straight from the bank, the stacks nice and flat and clean and still wrapped up in their bright violet straps. There were 8 of them. Behind them was a sheaf of papers, stapled in the corner. The envelope crinkled as he slowly lowered his hand, and he lifted his still-surprised gaze to Kole.  
  
"Sir, this is..."  
  
"Sixteen-thousand dollars, Nine. Hopefully that's allowance enough for you."  
  
"I... I don't know what to say."  
  
"Good, because I'm not done yet." He flashed a smile to himself and opened up one of the drawers to his desk, producing two small, black objects. He held the first out, and Hawker took it: it was a black leather wallet, freshly conditioned. It felt buttery smooth under his fingers' sensitive haptic pads. "You'll need someplace to put that money, won't you."  
  
A nervous chuckle. "Well it looks like I've got one now, sir."  
  
"And this." Kole stood up from the chair, circling around his desk to hand over what Hawker quickly recognized to be a small box. He opened it with slow curiosity, and inside was a pair of silver cufflinks inlaid with glossy carbon fiber. What the...? Kole rubbed at his chin, stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked at the small gift. "Lee gave these to me for my 25th year on the force," he said quietly. After a long beat he looked up to the mech. His gray eyes were heavy with emotion. "They're yours now."  
  
Hawker looked at them for a long while, gazed into the tiny reflections in their small, mirrored surfaces. The machine was suddenly inundated with images of Lee Davidson. His smiling face, his tanned and ruddy skin, his pale hair, his powerful laugh. Hawker's olfactories caught whiffs of imagined smells: Irish Spring bar soap, an open bottle of Dos Equis, the sauerkraut and roast beef of a Reuben sandwich, the smell of those little deodorizers he put in his boots when he wasn't wearing them. The mech stood there, frozen, overwhelmed by some kind of bittersweet feeling but not entirely sure what it was.  
  
"Hawker?"  
  
He snapped out of it. The box shut, and he quietly slipped it into his pocket. "Thank you, sir. It's an honor," he murmured. His voice sounded different. There was a pause as he glanced up at the ceiling to the office. "I'm gonna do him proud, Kole. Chris and I both will."  
  
The sergeant sniffed his nose only once. He straightened his tie. "You already have, Nine," he said. "You already have."  
  
"I, uh..." Hawker reached into the envelope, pulling out two stacks to pocket. The rest he handed back to the police sergeant. "Keep that for now, would you? I don't exactly have a safe place to put it yet. Well... not a place I can  _reach_  too easily in this body."  
  
"Sure thing, captain," he said with a chuckle. "That might be something else to discuss later as well." He gestured to the Ares. "If you're going to spending your days in that instead of the 9081, then... maybe a suite would be appropriate."  
  
His own suite, hm? A discussion for another time indeed. Still, he couldn't hide the smile that tugged at the corners of his gray mouth. "You'll be hearing from me again then, sir."  
  
"Now go on, get out of here. It's going to take you all weekend to find a suit that'll fit that thing anyways. And yes, that  _thing_  too," he finished, deadpan.  
  
Hawker paused, looked down at himself. Yes, how could he forget about that magnificent log between his legs now? Kole, on the other hand, did not look especially impressed. The mech saw nothing else to do but shrug and flash a winning smile. "Early Christmas present. What can I say? A man gets lucky sometimes."  
  
Kole waved his hand at him and shook his head. "Just go. You know what I'm gonna say."  
  
The mech laughed, turning and ducking down to step out. But the sergeant  _did_  stop him.  
  
"And hey - Nine." He waited for Hawker to stop and glance back over his shoulder. "I think Chris and Lee would have gotten along."  
  
There it was, that feeling again. "I think so too, sir."  
  
\---  
  
Hawker had pilfered a scarf from Chris when he'd visited the pilot's floor to pick him up. His rationale was purely aesthetic: it would have been strange to be walking around a blustery winter's day without a single winter garment on, whether he needed it or not. Secretly, though, he wanted to find out if he'd look good in one.  
  
Ferdinand's eyebrows shot up when the captain first stepped into the common area with Chris in tow, the chips in his hand getting quickly stuffed into his mouth. "Clothes!" he shouted. "Guys, Hawker's wearing clothes!" The space had been empty at first, but Ferd and Tsung had since settled down to munch and fiddle around with their phones.  
  
A few others peeked their heads out to gawk, and Hawker was maybe regretting not waiting for Chris down in the station foyer.  
  
Hawker rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright. Everyone with a mouth open better shut it or I'll be happy to put it to  _use_!" He was met with barks of awkward laughter. Ferd spit out a fine spray of half-chewed chips and everyone laughed even more.  
  
A few more pilots who usually commuted in were staying on-premises for a while due to the attack, and the 8th floor was more crowded than usual. Hawker knew everybody, but not as well as 42's resident crew. A few of the others - a Brown, a Jackson, a Ciszek - rarely got to interact with Big Nine at all, so this was a treat. Tsung and Ferd exchanged entertained grins while little Leslie Wen, on the other hand, held her can of sparkling water close to her face and had turned a peculiar shade of pink.  
  
"You, um, you look good in a scarf, captain."  
  
He adjusted it a little around his massive shoulders, fighting the urge to adjust something else as well. He settled for shifting his weight instead. "Thank you, Wen. At least somebody around here isn't above giving honest compliments."  
  
Ferdinand gave a shit-eating grin and snorted, stuffing more chips into his pie hole. "Well damn, sir, if you wanted your ass kissed, why didn't you say so!"  
  
Hawker chuckled dangerously, resting his hands on his hips. "It's not my  _ass_  that needs kissing, officer."  
  
Wen choked on her water, started coughing as she disappeared down the hallway, running. Ferdinand and Tsung roared with laughter, almost falling off the couch. The non-residents looked at each other, snorting behind their hands, half-scandalized by what had just come out of the Ares' mouth.   
  
"You ready to get the hell out of here yet, kiddo?"  
  
He hadn't told Chris about the money yet, having every intention to treat his boy to dinner after this. He deserved it.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris shuffled himself around, trying to get the jacket over his shoulders. Even from behind he could see that bulge. You've have to be blind to miss it.  
  
That made him smile. As did the way everyone on the room was looking at the big robot. There was an inherent respect, a way Hawker pulled everyone's attention to him.  
  
It is very much what Chris wants in his boyfriend. And there really was no reason why he couldn't think of his Captain that way now!  
  
 _"You ready to get the hell out of here yet, kiddo?"_  
  
He had the smile in his voice, enjoying the way the scarf fit around the thicky built neck of the Ares. "Absolutely. Let's hope my request for a handicap Uber results in something big enough."  
  
The two of them stood side by side in the elevator, Chris leaning into the right of of the metallic giant as the doors closed.  
  
\------------  
  
"Did you see-" began Tsung.  
  
"How could you not?" laughed Ferdinand, wiping at his eyes.  
  
"Chris is gonna be limping for months!" Tsung predicted.  
  
"I think I like new Hawker." said Ciszek, popping open a soda.  
  
"He terrible at Halo." admitted Tsung. "Chris just as bad."  
  
"You played Halo with them? And didn't tell us?" Ferdinand gaped. "What else have you done?"  
  
"Months ago!" growled Tsung!  
  
"Bah, next thing I'm gonna find out is that Wen sleeps in Hawker's lap!" Ferdinand teased.  
  
From the next room, her voice echoed "Don't you DARE tell him or Chris! OMG, I WILL end you!"  
  
"Pretty sure he knows Wen." Jackson piled on. "I bet he's planning on how he's gonna-"  
  
Wen tossed a pillow at Jackson, hitting with a whumf. "I SAID, stop it! God! Can't a girl crush on someone-"  
  
"Multiple someones." added Tsung.  
  
Wen rolled her eyes. "without the whole damn room teasing me for it?" she finished with a pout.  
  
The energetic air dissapated, but there were plenty of smiles.  
  
"I'm sure there's  _enough_  to share." teased Jackson before Wen TACKLED the rumor-monger, thoroughly beating her with that same pillow.  
  
\--------  
  
"You look great." Chris piped up, in the moment they had alone. "The scarf turns you adorable. You need a hat. And matching mittens or gloves." He nodded sagely. "I was talking with one of they techs in the motor pool, THule I think is his name? He said that we could do some plasti-dip and make your feet black for the part. Or your hands.. or torso. Ya know, if we need to make you presentable."  
  
\--------  
  
They waited outside, Chris had started to roast with all of the layers. Soft snowflakes came down from above. Around the front of 42 things seemed a little bit peaceful. "It feels good to go out. Pretend to be normal." he chuckled. "Do normal things. The stuff ya see in movies and TV shows."   
  
A red minivan pulled up as Chris's phone began to beep. THe door on his side rolled open automatically. "You Celn and ah.. you gotta be Celn and big robot." came the voice of the driver. Inside the van the middle row of seats had been taken out, leaving the large space free for 7 foot tall androids. Or perhaps wheelchairs. Either way, the van noticeably rocked as Hawker's bulk frame moved inside and came to rest on the carpeted floor. "You guys cops?" asked the driver, adjusting the rear view mirror as the door automatically closed.  
  
Chris buckled his seatbelt, the crutches looped through his left arm. "Yup. Don't worry, off duty."  
  
THe driver looked relieved, shifting into drive and moving off at a gentle pace down the road. The van's engine was a muted thrum off out under the hood, and they could hear how the tires kicked up slush into the wheel wells as they moved through the city. "So you guys are going uptown, huh?"  
  
Chris pushed out a foot and nudged Hawker's huge boot. He hadn't stopped smiling. He'd been making dreamy eyes at the Ares shell for the last hour. "Yeah. Could you turn on some Holiday music?"  
  
A laugh. "No problem." Soon the radio began to play instrumental Christmas tunes.  
  
\----  
  
A few clicks on the screen on his phone and they'd paid. "Seeya guys, have a good afternoon." Chris went slow, testing the spots under the rubber feet of his crutches so he didn't en up on his ass a second time. Hawker could easily hold the door open as Chris hobbled in under the outstretched arm of the Ares.  
  
"You must be Officer Celn and Captain Hawker!" came the effeminate voice of an exceptionally-well dressed shopping assistant. "And just look at you! I have at least twenty outfits that you'll look fantastic in." His blond hair had a streak of red that ran from over his right eye to the back of his head. A handsome man, caribbean descent, thin and absolutely fashionably attried. "As far as your mechanical friend?"  
  
He looked Hawker up and down, elbow in hand as he tapped his index finger to his lips. "Perfectly cut figure. If you were a foot shorter, maybe. I'm worried that you'd split the seams of the biggest jacket we carry. Stiil, can at least try. Have you decided if you want something more fashionable; or go with a timeless and classic look?"  
  
Chris exhaled. "I'm not sure. I don't want to end up looking like a waiter."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"It feels good to go out. Pretend to be normal. Do normal things. The stuff ya see in movies and TV shows."_  
  
Hawker's big hand snaked around Chris and came to rest on his opposite hip, drawing them as close together as the crutches would allow. He pondered the sentiment for a moment, looking up at the gray sky, feeling the snowflakes land on his Ares frame and turn to water droplets.  
  
"You know, I don't actually have the faintest clue what 'normal' is," he admitted gruffly. There was a smile on his face, though. "8 years living in a police precinct, and almost that many years menacing the Sino-Uralnye in a war I don't even remember fighting. And you, in and out of foster homes as a kid, gangs as an adult… I guess we could give it a go. They always seem to be having a good time in sitcoms, right?"  
  
The van that pulled up was one of those smaller people-movers, not something someone would actually  _own_. The side door rolled open and Hawker spent a moment figuring out where he'd sit. Ah, yes: on the floor, square between the two middle seats. He saw d-rings bolted to the floorbed: cargo tie-downs. Heh. Was he cargo or passenger?  
  
The Christmas music started and Hawker cocked a brow at Chris before gently elbowing him in the hip.  
  
\---  
  
 _"Perfectly cut figure. If you were a foot shorter, maybe. I'm worried that you'd split the seams of the biggest jacket we carry. Still, can at least try. Have you decided if you want something more fashionable; or go with a timeless and classic look?"_  
  
Hawker folded his arms and frowned.  
  
 _"I'm not sure. I don't want to end up looking like a waiter."_  
  
“I think for your friend,” the salesman said with a little flourish of a gesture, “Classic will be  _the_  look.” Then something occurred to him and he draped his hands across Chris’ shoulders with a self-aware little grin and shook his head. “My goodness, excuse me all to pieces - did you two need to  _match_?”  
  
Hawker shrugged. “I don’t fuckin’ know, do we?”  
  
Chris’ laughter told him otherwise.  
  
“Yeah I’ll take that as a no.”  
  
The salesman - Chet, his nametag said - smiled politely and whipped out a tape measure to size Chris up before promptly sitting him down on the smart leather sofa in the middle of the store as he went about gathering up several different styles and colors in his size.  
  
“Okay,” he said upon returning. “Here’s a variety of two-buttoned, notched-lapel jackets for you to try on. You’ve said you don’t want to look like a waiter so I’ve avoided black - gray, by the by, is very  _in_  right now as well,” he elaborated with an eager nod, setting down 4 jackets in more conservative colors. Two of them were gray.  
  
Chet then turned to Hawker once more, chin in his hand as he puzzled over the machine. “Is that your name? Ares?”  
  
“Naw, no. That’s the chassis.” He paused to chuckle. “They call me Hawker down at the station.”  
  
“Well, Hawker, looking at you, I’m envisioning double-breasted.”  
  
“Double breasted?” He looked to Chris, who was shrugging on the first jacket.  
  
Chet darted over to a small section and took out a hanger at the end - an enormous number in black. It was indeed double-breasted, and looked decent enough.  
  
“Ah. Well, Chris, what’s your opinion? Being that you’ve got a few years on me in the ‘human clothes’ department and all. And hey,” he said, tilting the Ares’ big, menacing head at his boy. “You look pretty sharp in that one.”

 

* * *

 

 

Chris wore one of the grey jackets, looking in the full-length mirror. His fingers traced over the notched lapel, obviously considering how he might look wearing that color. The other grey suit jacket had faint pinstriping. He held it up, considering the optional pattern.  
  
"I think it would be good for you with your build. You always see big guys in black, classic suits. Let your body do the talking."  
  
Chris slid out of the basic grey and donned the grey pinstripe top. It hugged him like the other, but the subtle white stripes accented his naturally slim figure. "I think I like this. I could wear it without a tie too." Even through all he had was a black t-shirt on underneath, the jacket fit him pleasantly. "I kinda like the paisley inside too."  
  
Chet is busy holding up the black jacket to Hawker in his Ares-3 shell. "Yes, black for sure. With your metallic coloring you should stick with black and white. The camouflage pants and tan boots to look proper as a military uniform, but they don't have a place in more formal settings." Draping the pants over a nearby chair, he holds up the jacket. "Hold your arms backward, just like that."  
  
The armholes at the shoulders of the jacket slide over the metallic hands, the smooth sensation of fine fabric slides over absurdly durable metal. THen it comes up and over the shoulders. THere's a feeling of weight, just barely, and the sensation of being hugged. Chet has Hawker hold his arms out, then rest at his sides. he uses a while piece of chalk to mark the places where it has to be let out and brought in.  
  
"Your shoulders are so broad!" His hands firmly feel along, then over where the biceps begin. "And your waist exceptionally narrow in comparison! You should do modelling." Getting out his measuring tape, Chet had quite the grin on his face. "Jacket off, Captain Hawker." Again, he helped to remove it.  
  
"Now, please remove your boots. Same for you Officer Celn. Need to measure you up for pants."  
  
Chris is already sitting, and Chet got to him quicker. "Hmmm. 30 inch waist, best go for 31 just so there's room to move. Inseam, yes yes.. Should have no problem there. Shoe size, 8 standard width. Do you like that jacket?"  
  
"Yeah. I think the color and style works." Chris nodded to the fashion expert.  
  
"Very good. I'll be right back!" With a skip in his step, Chet returned with a matching pair of pants and a white shirt with faint grey pinstriping. "Now get these on, there's a changing room right over there. Don't mind if the sleeves or legs are too long."  
  
Chris took the offered items and hobbled into the changing room.  
  
Chet got down on one knee as he took in Hawker's leg measurements. "38 inch waist, 38 inch inseam. It's almost like you were designed that way!" He giggled, but his eyes were drawn to that magnificent bulge. It is right there, in his face. Hawker watched as CHet licked over his lips, taking in a breath before standing up. "I do have pants to fit, but there's going to need to be adjustments to accommodate.." his eyes twinkled as he gestured to the obvious masculine size.

 

* * *

 

 

Optics were on Chris, watching him move in front of the mirrors with his own handsome suit jacket. It was slim-fitting, accentuating his body very nicely, and the gray fabric, almost a silver, matched his skin. When Hawker zoomed in a little, he caught the white pinstriping and nodded in approval.  
  
 _"I think I like this. I could wear it without a tie too."_  
  
"Like, say, for a dinner date?" the mech said with a little smirk.  
  
The jacket fit... sort of. The shoulders were a little tight, but the roominess around the waist  _definitely_  needed adjusting. It was a 3XL after all: designed for men larger all around. Chet busied himself making little marks with the tailor's chalk.  
  
 _"...And your waist exceptionally narrow in comparison! You should do modelling."_  
  
Chris was grinning at the thought, apparently. However, even when conveying the most deadpan skepticism, Hawker managed to look smug. "And what in the hell would this old war mech model," he chuckled, shrugging the jacket off with Chet's assistance.  
  
The big machine had sat down on the sturdiest looking thing in the place for taking off his boots while the salesman fetched Chris the rest of his ensemble and ushered him into the dressing room. He returned quickly, measuring tape in hand, and had Hawker stand and hold the topmost end for measuring his inseam.  
  
 _"38 inch waist, 38 inch inseam."_  
  
Quick, hazel eyes came to rest on the bulge that even the BDUs barely contained. The man was bigger than Chris by quite a lot, but he was still no Becker, and the Ares absolutely dwarfed him. Chet's tongue darted out to lick his upper lip playfully and he stood up as well.  
  
 _"I do have pants to fit, but there's going to need to be adjustments to accommodate.."_  
  
Hawker chuckled, putting his hands in his pockets and glancing down at himself as though he'd forgotten the enormous equipment was even there. He gave a little self-satisfied shrug. "Pants, people... gonna need a lot of accommodating going forward I think," he said in a low rumble before giving Chet a little wink.  
  
He gave a knowing smile, showing a set of immaculate teeth before licking his lip again and turning away. "Let's see about those pants, first," he said, a spring in his step and a snappy little sway to his hips this time as he walked away.  
  
Hawker just stood there, the edge of his mouth turned upwards. "I could get used to this," he murmured to himself.  
  
His hand found the box in his pocket, though, and he remembered. The mech pulled it out and opened the lid to look at the gift again, then turned and held him up to the jacket that Chet had draped over the back of the chair.  _Of course they match, you fuckin' idiot,_  he thought.  _They're both black._  
  
But still, there was something else about it that was important to him, and he studied the jewelry next to the sleek fabric for a few moments.  
  
"Very handsome," Chet said, returning. "The ah, cufflinks, I mean."  
  
"They were a gift."  
  
"And they'll look perfect in some crisp, white buttonholes, Mister Ares." He held up a neatly folded shirt and smiled. "You can put this on out here, but for the pants, you'll have to use the dressing room I'm afraid."  
  
 _You're afraid?_  Hawker wanted to laugh.  _Yeah, me too buddy!_  
  
A moment later and he'd slipped the shirt on, looking over himself in the mirror as Chet straightened out folds and tugged at the hemline and helped him button up. "Not half bad," the mech said gruffly to his reflection, sizing himself up as he went about figuring out how these 'shirt' things were supposed to work.  
  
"You're a natural," Chet reassured him, making more marks with the chalk. "Wherever it is that you two are going, all eyes will be on you for sure."  
  
Hawker snorted. "In my line of work, that's usually how it goes."  
  
"May I ask what it is you do, or is that too nosy of me?" His eyes met Hawker's optics and he cocked a shaped brow. "Or would you have to kill me if you told me?"  
  
"It's like I said, they call me Hawker down at the station."  
  
A moment as Chet processed that again, and his face lit up in surprise. "Wait,  _the_  Hawker?" he gasped. Then he made with a gesture that conveyed something very, very large. "The...?"  
  
The mech grinned wider and nodded. "Chicago's 'Long, Metal Arm of the Law'."  
  
Chet was still flabbergasted. "And your friend with the implant, this would probably make him...?"  
  
"My very capable pilot."  
  
The man's hand went to his mouth for a second before he whisked himself away. "If you'll excuse me for a moment, Mister, ah... Mister Hawker!" He disappeared through a door behind the front counter.  
  
Chris hobbled out from the dressing room just as Chet reappeared, looking a little more recomposed. "My manager has offered to provide our fitting services at no charge to either of you as a show of gratitude for your recent acts of heroism." He beamed that winning smile again. "And we will not take no for an answer."

 

* * *

 

 

Putting on a shirt is easy enough. The buttons though, tiny things for BIG fingers. It huge off the thick mech shoulders like a sail, Chet had to move around and pin it in place until it sat reasonably on the well-formed torso of the Ares chassis.  
  
Hawker could see it now. 'The clothes make the man' is the old saying. And did they ever here. Yards of fabric surrounding his chassis. Like Mr Universe. And it still conveyed his power, his abilities, how he barely fit into the world that humans had made. Just a touch too large, too tall, to heavy. The suit hid none of that. It just illustrated that even when placed in civility; how powerful the machine truely is.  
  
Perfect.  
  
Chris stood beside, looping a purple tie to his own shirt. Even though his suit looked oversized and drooped on his feet and hands, the colors fit him. He'd be cute and dashing when it is tailored to fit his trim physique.  
  
"We look pretty good." Chris admitted.  
  
 _"My manager has offered to provide our fitting services at no charge to either of you as a show of gratitude for your recent acts of heroism." He beamed that winning smile again. "And we will not take no for an answer."_  
  
Chris winced in embarrassment, turning an accusing grin up to the looming robot. "You told him?" Those long ears shook just slightly. "Well, thank you for your generous offer! We're happy to accept." If he is footing the bill for this, they're going to take every discount they could!  
  
Chet looked pleased. "So, does Captain Hawker just walk around in this when he's not huge? Usually in the news he's two stories tall."  
  
Chris looked happy, very happy to explain. "Not usually. After the 30 hour war his normal chassis went in for repairs. Lots and lots of repairs. It's surprising how much damage he took! So he's in this small body for a bit." He started to take off the poorly fitting clothes, pleased with his choice.  
  
"That's small??" came te incredulous response, the fashionisto disbelieving that a 7 foot giant robot would be small. Caotian Hawker loomed far enough above their conversation that he could pass for a wall.  
  
"Yeah. So uh, need anything more from us or?"  
  
Chet thought for a moment. "I don't believe so. Please take off those in the changing rooms and we'll have them altered in one or two days. You'll be able to come back for a final fitting."  
  
"Cool. Be right back." Chris limped off, still favoring his left foot.  
  
"Chicago's Big Nine in our shop. Do you think we could get a promotional photo once you're in your suit?"  
  
Five minutes later, the duo were at the register. Chet is totaling up their purchases. Chris looked at the pair of black dress shoes on the counter. "So I should try wearing these around to break them in a bit? And normal black polish works fine?"  
  
"Yes. They should not be a mirror shine though. You want a smooth finish but not reflective." Chet applied the friendly discounts, but the costs still crested over the 1k mark. I'm afraid that Captain Hawker would have to look elsewhere for footwear."  
  
Chris winced at the price, feeling thankful for a decade of deflation on the dollar. "Right.."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Chicago's Big Nine in our shop. Do you think we could get a promotional photo once you're in your suit?"_  
  
"Hm?" He looked over his shoulder, still at the mirror. He was liking the way the Ares looked in starched white and black dress slacks. "Oh, uh, sure thing." He imagined it would be great for business. And for knocking a couple hundred bucks off? Well, it was the least they could do. "So long as my partner gets to stand with me."  
  
Chet smiled as he moved around the counter to the till and started tallying everything up. "Of course, Mister Hawker! Of course. He's quite the looker himself, too."  
  
The mech took the shirt off, draped it over the jacket. A smile crept over his own face and he headed into the dressing rooms, his BDUs slung over his arm. "Preachin' to the choir, Chet."  
  
\---  
  
Chris was at the counter when Hawker emerged, and the kid was gawking at the bill.  
  
"What's the damage?" he grunted, putting a hand on Chris' shoulder and giving a little squeeze. His other hand went to his pocket to rest on one of the stacks of bills.  
  
"Your total comes to $1226.47. Will you be paying credit or debit?"  
  
Chris sighed, looking a little defeated as he reached into his own pocket to produce his phone. "Deb -"  
  
"Cash, actually," Hawker interrupted proudly, holding up one of his stacks of clean, crisp 20's. Chet's eyes widened and he took the bills, easing off the strap and carefully counting out 62 of them in bundles of 5. Chris was still surprised, and Hawker leaned in, putting his hulking arm around his pilot's shoulders. "Merry Christmas, kiddo," he murmured, planting a little kiss on his hair. "And I'm treating you to an early dinner after this, too. Anywhere you want."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker's hand fit from the side of his neck to where the thumb gripped on the vertical part of his shoulder. Chris leaned into the hand, reaching up with his good arm to rub along the back of the Mech absently.  
  
"I'm serious! The two of you would look fantastic on our promotional material." Chet beamed, looking pleased at the sale.  
  
Chris swore he could hear his account screaming as he reached down, the crutches pressing up under his arms. "Deb-"  
  
 _"Cash, actually,"_  
  
Of COURSE Hawker would have a fat wad of cash. Crisp and clean, each note probably had sequential serial numbers. The large hands could work the bills almost like a normal person could work a deck of cards. Chris felt a pang of jealousy as the robot suddenly became an ATM.  
  
He was going to get angry. Or maybe demand payment for the monster swinging between though thighs. But then he got a huge and a kiss, out in public and he just got a dopey smile on his face and looked at Chet.  
  
The fashion assistant is beaming, holding his hands to his face. "Oh MY STARS! You two are the CUTEST!" Chet's eyes had a twinkle. "You should go to Harry's! It's a lovely place and just two blocks away, go up and east."  
Practiced retail hands quick flipped through the cash and handed Hawker the change.  
  
"You're partners, pilot and machine, AND a couple? Oh that's just the sweetest!" Chet leaned on the counter. "Don't forget your shoes! I'll make sure to call you when this is done." The shop's phone rang and Chet had to go pick it up.  
  
Chris turned, his crutches making soft clacks as he faced the Ares. "And just when did you get paid?" He teased, bumping his head into those thick pecs. "Thank you Boss. And dinner with you would be wonderful. Sadly, I'm not sure they have much for handsome robots."  
  
For a long moment his hands linger onto the cobblestone abdominals, the yellow glow of the mech's optics bathe his face as he tries to remember the last time he exchanged a gift. Real gifts that cost real money. Had he ever?  
  
There is just a happy sniff, and he looked up with eyes that sown with a touch of happy wetness. "Let's try that place Chet mentioned. Harry's. I'm sure I can make the walk." He's so sweet when he is emotional; doesn't know how to handle himself with those emotions.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"You're partners, pilot and machine, AND a couple? Oh that's just the sweetest!"_  
  
"You don't know the half of it," Hawker chuckled quietly, giving Chris' shoulder a squeeze just hard enough to hurt.  
  
 _"Don't forget your shoes! I'll make sure to call you when this is done."_  
  
"Perfect. Thanks."  
  
And with that, he disappeared into the phone, giving his flawless customer service voice. "Smith and White's, this is Chet speaking, how may I help you today..."  
  
 _"And just when did you get paid?"_  
  
That soft skin of Chris' face against his chest, and even softer hair. He couldn't help but reach up to ruffle it a little. "Been trying to work something out with Kole lately," was the reply. "He finally pulled through for me this morning. Sixteen Gs, but it's all I get for a year. I guess there'd be a scandal if it got out that he had an AI on the payroll."  
  
 _"Thank you Boss. And dinner with you would be wonderful. Sadly, I'm not sure they have much for handsome robots. Let's try that place Chet mentioned. Harry's. I'm sure I can make the walk."_  
  
Hawker's smile turned devious as he pulled on Chris' hat for him, tugging it down to cover his ears, before slinging his scarf around his own thick shoulders. "If you can't, I could just sling you across my back like a wounded soldier. And don't even worry about it, kiddo." He turned him around and gave him a little pat on the rear. "I can have fun  _anywhere_."  
  
\---  
  
Harry's turned out to be a fancy steak joint just up the block, its sign in red neon cursive with the words "Est. 1997" painted in white underneath. It was dimly lit inside, full of wood panelling and dark green pleather on the booth seats. The place smelled like old varnish, old carpeting, cologne, and food, of course. It reminded him of something, but he wasn't sure what. That was probably the intended effect.   
  
"Apparently it's real beef too," he said as he held open the door and ushered them both inside, stomping his boots on a mat to get the slush off. "None of that lab-grown shit they got everywhere now."  
  
"How many in your party, sir?" the receptionist asked, her face illuminated by the small green lamp at her booth as she gathered up menus. She did a double-take at the Ares.  
  
Hawker held up two fingers, and she nodded carefully.  
  
"I hope you're alright with a booth," she said a little nervously. "I don't think you'll fit at a table or the bar, I'm afraid."  
  
"Booth sounds great." He gestured for Chris to walk in front of him, the mech's massive frame close behind. They garnered a number of stares as they walked past the relatively sparse early dining crowd. Behind glass to their right was the bar area, which  _was_  packed. A game was on, and the happy hour drinks were flowing. "So how'd this neighborhood do after the Thanksgiving attack?"  
  
The receptionist stood beside a spacious corner booth and Chris took his time getting in. "We caught a few stray bullets, chipped some of the brick outside, busted a window, but most of those robots were marching a couple blocks over. We got very lucky." Hawker wondered what the hell luck had to do with anything, but he just nodded as though he didn't disagree. These were civilians, he remembered. And civilians liked civility. The mech sat himself down via the other end of the booth and scooted in closer to Chris as best he could. His knees bumped the table and it was all in all a very tight squeeze, but at least the seatbacks were high. He grabbed one of the menus just for the hell of it and started perusing the offerings.  
  
"Your server will be here in just a moment to get your drink orders." She wound her way back to the front and left them alone.  
  
He turned to his boy. "Get whatever you want," he grunted. "So it'd better be something good." There was a wink in his voice.  
  
\---  
  
"Is that really him?" whispered an Asian woman from a secluded table in the bar. She was trying to get a good look at the pair who'd just been seated in the other room, but it was difficult. The seatbacks were too damn high and there were frosted glass partitions to boot.  
  
One of her companions, a blond-haired, blue-eyed man in a suit, whipped out his phone and quickly pulled up an image he saw in the Tribune from an article on 42's newest ace pilot. It didn't take long. He held the phone up and everyone at the table drew in closer to have a look. "It's him alright."  
  
" _Ta made_ ," the woman hissed, turning to frown into her whiskey. "Fuck."  
  
"What?" murmured the third, a half-Taiwanese half-Russian man, blessed with the best genes from both parents. A true Sino-Uralnian. "It's not like we  _didn't_  know Celn survived. Or that Vasiliev got his ass kicked back there."  
  
The woman risked another look in their direction. "Who's that android with him, then? A bodyguard?"  
  
"An Ares personnel drone," the blond chimed in with a heavy voice that was difficult to whisper with. "Seseer said they got an arms shipment from the DOD after the 30-Hour Invasion. Like dogs getting table scraps. The Ares was probably the crown jewel," he said, taking a sip of his martini.  
  
"Who's in it, then?"  
  
The Sino-Uralnian shrugged, finishing off his drink. "Probably the DF2."  
  
"Well I don't like it. It was one thing to have that 'good ol' boy' Davidson running around like he was some posterchild of American honor," she muttered harshly, clearly angry at the situation. She eyed her two companions. "...But at least the  _Bloodhound_  stayed in its kennel."  
  
"Just relax, Tara." The Sino-Uralnian man set his empty glass down. He was tall and lean, and looked fantastic in his fitted navy suit. Faint wisps of gray touched his temples, but his head of black hair was full. Perhaps his most striking feature, though, was his piercing blue eyes set in a sleek, distinctively Asian face. The scarf that hung loosely around his neck covered up an implant. "They have no way of knowing who we are. And they're clearly off-duty anyways."  
  
She stared daggers at the self-sure man, struggled to maintain her composure. "Just relax? Sorry Michael, but I can't exactly relax with  _that_  thing in the building. Or have you forgotten what that AI  _did_  in Siberia?"  
  
The man, Michael, leveled his eyes at her, remaining calm. "I haven't forgotten a god damned thing," he snapped, voice suddenly dark and dangerous. "Now if you can't keep your  _cool_  and would rather make a scene like a fucking child, be my guest. Just expect Xu and his boys at your door if you do."  
  
It was a few tense moments before the woman gathered her things, shrugged on her heavy coat, and stood up. "I'm out of here. Enjoy drinking with your uncle's killer,  _Mike_. I'll be phoning up Saseer."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"I can have fun anywhere."_  
  
"Mphf! I can't wait until I'm healthy. I want to have fun too."  
  
The walk in the cold turned his cheeks and nose bright red. He'd dropped the bag on the booth along with his coat. The crutches rested on top, he let out a happy sigh as he sat down on the fine leather. The table jostled, then needed to be scooted two inches toward him for the Ares to fit. For a moment they sat there, booted feet touching under the table. Trying to be normal.  
  
"Good evening Sirs. Welcome to Harry's Restaurant." Spoke the waiter, his soft voice matching is weathered features. I am Jack and I'll be your waiter this afternoon. Might I start you off with some drinks?" He opened the menu for both cops before placing it before them. On Chris's, a list of drinks with fairly high prices were listed. On Hawker's a page of fluids ranging from pure water to moderately weighted oils.  
  
"I'd love some coffee. And um.. an old-fashioned."  
  
"Very good sir. Sparkling or still water?"  
  
Chris blinked. Then, sheepishly, "What's the difference?"  
  
Jack smiled politely. "Sparkling has carbonation, bubbles."  
  
"OH! Sparkling please."  
  
"And for the android?"  
  
Their orders in, Chris slid the toe of his boot over Hawker's. "You look good." He paused, then he got that mischievous grin. "We need a hobby."  
  
Hawker gave him a look.  
  
"You heard me. A hobby. Something that we can do to take a break from work. And it can't be the gym, guns, or sex. Those are already givens."  
  
Jack returned after giving them minutes to examine their menus. "Do you have any questions? Are you ready to order?"  
  
Chris pointed to the first entry on the list of entrees. "I would like the classic Harry's steak, please. Never had one before."  
  
Jack had a warm smile, his greying hair brushed back. "Excellent choice. How would you like it done?"  
  
Chris did the blink again, eyes straying to Hawker for a moment, no help with food there. "Um, I'm not sure. What's best, I guess?"  
  
"Medium rare it is sir. I assure you it tastes much better then food from a lab. I'd recommend the traditional sides of a baked potato and creamed corn."  
  
"Sounds great!" He handed the menu back, settling in his seat. After they were alone, he fiddled with the cloth napkin, pulling it through his fingers.  
  
\-------------------  
  
Tara calmly collected her coat from the check near the front door. In one of the mirrors, she could just catch the tops of the Ares drone's ears wiggling as it spoke. She wrapped herself up and waited for the valet to bring around her car. Tips of course, she wouldn't want anyone to think she was anything but a socialite. It was only after she sat behind the wheel of her Tesla and it's auto pilot had ferried her toward the richer part of town that she allowed herself to swear in korean.  
  
She remembered the stories that were told. Of what the CIA had done, what it had unleashed in that camp. She remembered walking through the hell that had been the Bloodhound's personal playground years later.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"And for the android?"_  
  
Hawker scowled at the menu. He'd never ingested anything aside from his tablets before, but the Ares was capable of such: oral fluid intake was part of field maintenance, when a technician wasn't available to properly service fluid levels. Taste sensors were again not present in this body (for the sake of the human pilot, who would likely  _not_  enjoy the flavor of petrochemicals), but haptic sensors were, to at least give the pilot a chance at experiencing pleasurable mouthfeel while interfaced for days, or sometimes  _weeks_  at a time under combat conditions.  
  
All of his fluids were at optimum levels, in which case the excess would be stored in a small overflow reservoir in his belly.  
  
"I'll have a, uh... I dunno, whatever the hell this Grossglockner Tonic is." He set his menu down and their server hurried away.  
  
 _"We need a hobby."_  
  
"A what?"  
  
 _"You heard me. A hobby. Something that we can do to take a break from work. And it can't be the gym, guns, or sex. Those are already givens."_  
  
Hawker smiled and scoffed. "What more is there to life, kid?" Still, Chris was right. If we was going to be out among the living more often like this... if he was going to be living his life more like a person and less like an asset, then it was maybe time to reevaluate how he spent his spare time. He thought about it for a long moment as Jack returned with their drinks. Hawker's came in an elegant polycarbonate flute and had two layers: a yellowish liquid that effervesced, topped with a more viscous brown that reminded him of good Columbian coffee. He watched as the little bubbles gathered under the brown, then 'blooped' through the top layer when the surface tension was no longer sufficient to keep the carbonation down as the bubbles gathered and grew. It was, all in all, fascinating to watch.   
  
When the waiter turned to Hawker after Chris gave his order, the mech shook his head and handed the menu back, feeling suddenly quite happy with how their evening was going. After all, this  _was_  their first date, wasn't it?  
  
"Cheers," he rumbled contentedly, holding his glass up to his boy, and taking a first sip.  
  
\---  
  
"Saseer," Tara said as she reclined in the back seat of her self-driving Tesla model S90. The interior was all buttery calf leather and mahogany. "It's Noh. I was out at Harry's for drinks with Serov and Umsky, and I saw something that I thought might interest you."  
  
"Oh?" Saseer's voice on the other end was deep, rough, measured. His encrypted sat phone meant he could be anywhere right now, though in all likelihood he was somewhere in the Midwest. "Tell me all about it."  
  
\---  
  
Their night had been good. Great, even. Hawker never remembered feeling so... footloose and fancy-free. Not even on his downtime with Lee, as a matter of fact. Chris made him feel some kind of way that loosened up his servos and kept a smile on his normally austere face.  
  
 _I love you._  
  
Those had been the kid's words, and he'd meant all three of them. Hawker turned the memory of it being spoken over in his CPUs as he held the injured human close while they waited for their Uber to pull up beside them, and it filled him. Filled him almost like a pilot would when they sat in his cockpit. Almost.  
  
He assumed his position in the large van and helped Chris in, grabbing his unwieldy crutches and stowing them away. When the man behind the wheel turned around to make sure everyone was inside, Hawker realized that they'd gotten the same driver as before.  
  
"I thought I recognized you two," he chuckled.  
  
"Yeah, I don't think I've got a career in undercover work," the mech replied.  
  
The driver laughed and pulled away from the curb to take them back to the station. "So wait, you guys like firefighters? You live on-site for a few days or something? I never quite understood how that whole thing worked. I remember the days before mechs and drones, believe it or not..."  
  
Chris explained the situation a little - that 42 had a small core of resident pilots and an extended network of others who remained on-call for several different precincts at once. He didn't go into the whole 'Big Nine' thing, but what he did say slaked the driver's curiosity enough for the evening.  
  
"That's a tough way to go," he said, edging into an intersection to make a left turn.  
  
"Not the prettiest job in the world," Hawker grunted, "But somebody's gotta do it."  _And I'm glad we're two of those somebodies, kiddo._


	23. Enter the Magnus *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the sodomy.

They waved the driver goodbye at the front of the station. It was a big, imposing building that took up an entire city block and topped off at 10 stories at its highest point. Thin, slat-like windows faced the outside to minimize the chance of successful surveillance, or of a potential shooter from hitting their target. The double doors that led into the lobby were just as impressive, and Hawker held one open as his pilot hobbled up the last steps and inside. On a concrete pad at the edge of the property, a sentry mech gave a little two-fingered wave to the pair, to which Hawker waved back. It was probably Ferdinand.  
  
The elevator doors opened right away for them, and Hawker followed Chris inside. He liked elevators, he realized - they were confined, exit-less spaces that made him feel quite compelling. And when it was just him and his pilot like this, well...  
  
The hand that'd been resting on Chris' lower back trailed further down to grab a fistful of firm but supple derriere. The log between his legs had been demanding acknowledgment all evening, and the mech was quite eager to put it through some kind of test run. And soon. He hit the button for the pilot's floor and leaned in close, nipping at the top of his human's ear.  
  
"I'm putting you to work tonight, officer," he murmured in that deep baritone. "Consider it part of your physical therapy."

 

* * *

 

 

The glasses clinked softly and Chris enjoyed the way the alcohol swirled around his tongue. He looked across the table taking in the strange sight of a robot enjoying a beverage. THen he grinned.  
  
"You handsome devil."  
  
Hawker got to watch as Chris savored the fine meal, uttering little moans of delight from the rich flavors.   
  
'Elbows off the table. Cut small pieces. Chew and swallow before the next one. Take your time, no one's stealing it from you. Wipe your lips.'  
  
The machine needed to guide the uncouth human, gently guiding with instructions from a good manners wiki.  
  
The steak didn't stand a chance. After ten minutes he'd cleaned the plate and is moppin up the juices with a piece of bread. "I think that's the best thing I've ever put in my mouth. I wish you could feel how good it is to eat that." With a pleased sigh, and not sucking on his fingers this time, he settled back in the booth. The heavy leather cushions swallowed him up and he gave Hawker a happy smile.  
  
\---  
  
Michael swirled a miniature spoon through his fifth cup of tea. He looked across the table at his companion, the two of them listening in on the truly insipid conversation. All they'd needed was a trip to the restroom as an excuse to deploy a small listening device in a potted plant near the table housing the two police officers. The DF2 and pilot had an unusual relationship. THe machine alternated between a fatherly attidute and the demeanor of a superior officer. THe pilot waffled between lesser rank and childish amusement. By the time his sixth cup had been consumed, Michael had heard enough.   
  
"It seems the bloodhound is in control. Not much need for a pilot." murmured the other man, his thick eyebrows pulled together as the bluetooth earpiece whispered their plans for some kind of party.  
Michael considered, eyes flicking as Celn hobbled toward the restroom. The two men shared an unspoken thought. The boy could die right here, right now.  
But then that Ares would ensure the two of them did as well. Not a suitable exchange.  
"We'll need tie to prepare for that. For now, I think it's time to leave." Michael waved to one of the attentive waiters, paying the bill with a stack of fresh banknotes.  
On the way out, the Sino-Uralnian allowed himself a single glance toward the DF2, where it loomed over the pilot. Helping the young man dress for the cold. Perhaps..  
  
Perhaps the pilot didn't know. Mmm. A fun revelation, perhaps, before they both were ended. THe look of rejection from the organic as the last thing the bloodhound knew before an eternity of pain in a black-box simulation.  
  
\---  
  
The ride back to the station is fun, Chris felt full. Full of confidence too, as long as he had Hawker to tell him how to act he shouldn't embarrass himself too much. And he felt happiness in how Hawker had been. His big robot had been like a human. Had a chance to be human, to rub elbows and loom and talk and play at the small scale. To be among the dolls in the dollhouse, instead of the giant outside.  
  
He'd never seen big nine grin so much.  
  
_"I'm putting you to work tonight, officer," he murmured in that deep baritone. "Consider it part of your physical therapy."_  
  
Flexing his rear, CHris grinned wide. "I've been thinking about you all day." He returned the favor, feeling that heavy weight slide between his fingers as he used both hands to feel over his partner's groin. "You're going to erupt and I'm going to make it happen."  
  
*Ding!* THe elevator arrived on floor 8 and the doors slid open. Tsung is engrossed in BloodBorne 4, while Jane watched her attempting a no-hit run on a boss.  
  
The two of them made a beeline to Chris's room, not even bothering to put a sock on the door before locking it. Chris dropped his shopping and crutches in a heap. Two limping steps and he clung to the Ares, reaching up and kissing needily at that jawline, smooching the silver lips as they came close. THe yellow of HAwker's eyes lit up the red in his cheeks and nose, he huffed and trembled int he seven foot tall giant's embrace.  
  
"Set me down on the bed and whip that monster out. I want dessert."

 

* * *

 

 

The first kiss was normal. Normal like how normal people kiss. Not like how an AI designed to murder and accustomed to being 15 feet tall, the mouth of its chassis just big enough to bite a human's head off like Ozzy Osbourne with a bat would kiss. The lips of the Ares were almost realistic. Supple, warm, embedded with a thousand haptic sensors that fed data to those damn self-coding pleasure centers. Pleasure centers that no engineer dared to willingly equip the DF2 with because... well, shit like this was bound to happen.  
  
_"Set me down on the bed and whip that monster out. I want dessert."_  
  
Hawker felt a faint surge of aggression - he wanted to let it out, but Chris was on the mend and he needed to  _stay_  on the mend. This would have to be Playtime Lite (TM). An exploratory exercise. A wargrame. Friendlies. No live rounds.  
  
He wasn't sure he even felt comfortable putting it  _in_  his human at this point. But god _dammit_  did he want to. The mehc decided to play it by ear.  
  
"You're not going to take it all tonight," he muttered, claiming Chris' head of hair with a fist to his crown and a hiss from the boy's mouth. A tug backwards, neck exposed. He bent his head low to bite at the flesh there, stopping just as he was about to get carried when he remembered Kole's  _Rules_ , and growled faintly in his chest. A single slip-up is all it would take to get himself demoted to janitorial drone duty. He didn't want to imagine what it was like to be without legs.  
  
Hawker continued, refocusing. "You're going to take exactly 6 inches until I see that you've done so... to my standards." He picked Chris up like nothing, gently setting him onto his bed, tugging his shirt up into his pits to reveal that smooth torso. The Ares' denta found a burgeoning ab muscle and bit down, sucking. He was determined to leave  _some_ kind of mark on his boy tonight, even if it had to be here. At the very least, it  _would_  ache for a while...  
  
\---  
  
"Let me get this straight," said Saseer. Tara had arrived in the garage of her high-rise apartment building, her Tesla parked, but stayed put. "You saw Ishcheyka at a  _restaurant_ with its new pilot."  
  
"Th-that's exactly what we saw." She made sure to specify that the others had seen it too. "It had an Ares mark 3. 42's sergeant is... I'm not sure what he's doing, to be quite honest. I don't know if this is some kind of undercover work, if they're retiring the 9081, if..."  
  
"I don't like speculation, Noh. I thought you knew that."  
  
Was that the gangster in him talking, or the Russian? Saseer wasn't really either, though. The man called Ivan Saseer was half-Mongolian, a people that the developed world never thought could be roused to participation in the stage of international politics, let alone war. But the Sino-Uralnye was a strange, strange bloc, representing voices in Eastern Russia and the rest of Asia that the West had long forgotten. Before the Siberian war, they embarrassed both Moscow and Beijing in kind. Afterwards, after the bombing and the occupations, there was hardly anyone left  _to_  embarrass. China fractured, Moscow retreated, and the cold steppes asserted their anger and their wealth accumulated through trades newer than herding and farming: arms dealing. Money laundering. Guerrilla training. Or perhaps these things were not all that modern after all.  
  
"Michael seemed to think it was the DF2," she responded quickly, then frowned. "But he seems to think we need to watch and wait."  
  
"Blue Sky has plans in motion for our next move. I doubt this will impact their decisions, but I thank you for bringing this news to my attention. If it is indeed Ishcheyka in the Ares, then this is not good. I'll let them know immediately. They will not like to hear that that AI is mobile."  
  
\---  
  
The Magnus was doing exactly as it was intended. Pressurizing in response to haptic, emotional, and mental stimuli, the damn thing was threatening to  _tear_  out of his BDUs. But Chris' mouth was too good, still just a hair small. Just how Hawker liked it. The kid had gotten antsy, and the mech decided that restraining his hands would be a good solution - his wrists were currently pinned to the gray sheets by his shoulders.  
  
"I think you've forgotten who's boss, kiddo," he chuckled dangerously, yellow optics flaring briefly. "Or do I need to throw us in a sim so you can remember what it's like to endure the  _real_  me?"

 

* * *

 

 

The fingers slipping through his hair suddenly tightened. THere is pain, even when he's allowing his head to be guided to the position hawker desires. His lips felt tender fromt he powerful suction, the skin of his neck tingled as teeth and tongue passed over them. He felt his own need rising, his hands stroking over the shoulder and chest of the machine as it leaned into him.  
  
"Oh yes.. oh fuck yes! You're still a giant."  
  
He kept a hand on that broad metallic head as the robot went down on him, it's lips hoving then planting on his smooth belly. He giggled at first. He swore he could hear the robotic lungs filling as the suction increased, the warm sensation pulling his skin inware. Teeth nibbled, he squirm, soon whimpering and enduring. After a long, long moment the machine pulled free. He had an exceptionally visible hickey on his upper left ab. The pilot made the happiest grin, working to get down to his boots.  
  
"I wanna get naked!"  
  
The soft whirring of the mechanical hands moving fast, and then he found his hands quite bound up. He wasn't exactly sure HOW Hawker'd done it, but right now he could see the immense bulge where the newly-attached schlong is trying to work free. "The sim? Aw, come on! Don't you wanna know what it's like having me just a little smaller then you, and just as helpless as before?" He made a show of tightening up his chest and stomach muscles, the jeans showing off his arousal as well.   
  
"I want to see the look on your face as I finally get to such you off right. I want to feel you thrusting in my, both ends. I want to see the triumphant grin you get when you FINALLY get to fire off inside me, marking me on the inside." Then he leaned forward, smooching the hidden pylon. "You're the boss. YOu're always in control. I'm yours, so don't keep me waiting."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"The sim? Aw, come on! Don't you wanna know what it's like having me just a little smaller then you, and just as helpless as before?"_  
  
A brief thought occurred to him: who  _was_  the real Hawker? Whatever body and equipment he happened to be in at the time? Hm. Something to mull over later.  
  
He chuckled. "Not a bad sales pitch."  
  
_"You're the boss. You're always in control. I'm yours, so don't keep me waiting."_  
  
"I don't intend to," the mech growled, reaching down with his other hand to tug down the front of his pants and underwear. His raging hardon was getting in the way, and it took a little wrestling to free it from the clothing. It was strange to be here - he thought again of his time in medical, feeling so tiny and powerless, and that feeling was still not entirely  _gone_. This was still his sexuality, his violence... but writ smaller. And Chris, in a way, was just as small.   
  
Hawker wagged his hips a little, taunting his boy with the impressive shaft. The human gave a little gasp, and the machine stroked himself... just a little. Christ, it felt  _amazing!_ He made a mental note to start a masturbation routine.   
  
He needed both hands now, so he freed Chris and worked on ripping off the kid's pants, jerking them roughly down his toned legs and past his ankles. They sailed across the room and settled on the floor with a muffled  _fluph_. That smaller prick was already straining in the cool air, and when Hawker drew up one of those thighs, that puckered hole looked goddamn enticing.  
  
But he wanted a mouth on his cock first. The bed creaked as he climbed on top of his boy, BDUs still hanging far off the edge.  
  
"Hope you're ready for dessert," he said, steely lips twisted up into a grin as he scooted up and straightened, his enormous pole beckoning. His pre smelled like vanilla.

 

* * *

 

 

The Ares 3 frame has artificial muscle. This means Hawker can move like a human and when he used both bassive hands to stroke over that monster cock; everything looked as real and human-like as possible. And right now all of that is focused on aiming the magnus at his little pilot.  
  
Chris's soft skin, marked with the Mech's mouth. Still bearing some scars from the battle. He had the start of muscle in places, he'd be one of those short and built guys one day.  
  
But right now he is a boy, Hawker's boy. Entranced by the massive tool pointed right at his face. THe foreskin pulled back with each tug, revealing the broad bell of the glans. THe cumslit dripped the robot's built-in slickness.   
  
Chris couldn't hold back any longer! He pushed himself up on his elbows and got his mouth into position. The frist thing is his tongue, warm and wet slipping over the dripping tip. Hawker could hear him swallow. Then it finally happened, he got to be IN someone. Chris is soft.  
  
The way the boy's cheeks would puff out. The way his lips stretched out, and how his tongue would flick around and slip between the girth and wet it down for more. Soft suction too, the gentle pull that begged for more to fill his mouth. And There is plenty more to go in! His eyes are focused on watching all those inches and how they slipped in deeper and deeper. Soon he had a good five in his mouth and gently is touching his molars to the widest part of the magnus.  
  
Hawker got to watch as Chris pulled back, sliding his lips over every millimeter until he is just kissing the cumslit. Tonguing the tasty vanilla, he grinned and took the length back in; needing more from the heavy construct.

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker, though still high on how  _hot_  the two of them looked, made sure to mind Chris' endurance levels, his still-healing injuries. The cute little pilot was not to hurt himself - that was his machine's job!  
  
When that mouth was on him, though -  
  
Hawker's lips parted and he could barely hold back the hoarse rumble. It was so low that it could have vibrated the walls. Then it was followed by a sharp inhale that was promptly vented out his scapular vents with a long, ragged  _whoosh_. It was like before, with his 'yardstick', but the sensations were different; fuller; more precise. It may have been a trick of the homonculous mapping, but Hawker was almost  _sure_  that he could feel the taste buds on Chris' tongue each sliding along that dense head before pushing the foreskin back to take him in.  
  
"Holy shit," he half-grunted, half-chuckled at the sensation. Not once did he take his burning yellow optics off his boy, watching hungrily as that jaw opened to fit his immense girth. Hot, wet, tight. Chris' teeth could do nothing but graze as he greedily sucked him further in - another fantastic bit of pleasure. Then he pulled back, lips puffy and slick at the exertion, practically nursing at that obscene cockhead. Hawker could feel another dribble of fluid sluice up his pipe and drool across the human's eager tongue. God, he looked perfect like this. Face flushed, chest heaving, sharp eyes burning with a need that only his inhuman - in _humane_  - captain could sate.  
  
His abs tightened and he rocked into Chris, one of his hands bracing against the wall and the other cradling Chris' chin. His thumb pressed into his cheek to feel himself through the flesh.  
  
"I'm gonna cum in you so deep one of these days that your  _sweat_  will smell like me," he rumbled, still poking and prodding and stroking around his pilot's little mouth. Hawker was so achingly hard that he could have probably thrust right on through the back of Chris' skull. "You won't be able to scrub the vanilla off'a you for a goddamn  _week_." A pause, a smirk, and he cycled air some more. "That's it. Get it nice and slick, boy. Not fucking you bloody... not  _tonight_  at least."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker's heavy orbs swayed, slipping between the taunt thighs built to withstand the rigours of war. Those same thighs powered thrusts into the small space that is the human pilot's mouth. Wet slurping and sucking sounds filled the air. Warm human hands came up and began to stroke along the immense length yet to be sheathed.  
  
Long pleasurable moments passed, each little thrust gaining another bit of distance into the soft mouth of his partner. Hawker could feel it, ALL of it. The level of sensation feedback only matched by the sensors on his tongue. The software and hardware of the magnus fed PLEASURE and NEED in continuous cycles that had no noticeable limit! Was it better then his normal three foot monster? Hard to say for sure, but then again he'd never had the pleasure of being fellated.  
  
Clear, vanilla-scented drool dripped down the twink's chin. Noisy swallows are not enough to keep up with the copious production, and the machine marked it's pilot with scent and output. Chris pushed off the last of his pants, legs kicking and he winced adorably. Nude from the waist down, he looked up past that lewd smirk and into the gleaming golden eyes of the robot.  
  
Do it.  
  
I want to pass out because you've gone so deep you're shooting into my stomach. I want to feel the pain of swallowing your sword. I  **NEED**  it.   
  
Put me on my back, on my side. Smirk down at me as you fill me up with your lust! Claim your pilot over and over until all I can do is weep and beg for it all to end.  
  
Please. Please! Give it to me Captain. I need all of you.  
  
Those eyes, those eyes are begging for everything he can't say with a full mouth!

 

* * *

 

 

The look in Chris' eyes was one Hawker was all-too familiar with. He'd seen that look before, and usually had the neurospace connection to feel the powerful desire ripping through his little pilot's head, but not this time. This time they were fucking like humans.  
  
Those brown eyes gazed up at him like he was a god. And for all intense and purposes right now, he was. It would take an army to bring him down.  
  
Hawker felt the heat in him rising. It was a different heat from before - a softer, battery-powered warmth - but it was filling him like the scalding temperatures of the 9081's reactor coolant, and accomplishing much of the same. He growled deep in his chest at the  _rightness_  of this. However, a thought flashed:  _it could be right **er**_. He imagined holding a handgun to his boy's head, locked, loaded, his finger hovering over the trigger. He imagined the red marks the end of the barrel would make as he pressed the cold metal to the thin, fragile skin of his temple. He imagined the shaking breaths, the tears welling up as that tongue fearfully slid across his weeping cockhead...  
  
Chris withdrew for a moment to get his pants off.  
  
Hawker realized, as he looked down upon that small, lean, scar-riddled body beneath him, that he wanted Chris to be happy just as much as he wanted Chris to hurt. That he wanted Chris to be his own man just as much as he wanted complete and utter control. That he wanted Chris to wake up in his arms every morning just as much as he wanted to watch him  _die_.  
  
The mech would think this through later, though, because suddenly his boy toy's delicious little prick was waving at him.  _Hel-lo._  Below it sat those smooth balls of his, and below  _that_  was the real prize tonight. A hole, tight and aching to be filled with his massive girth. Hawker could hear Chris' little noises already, imagine his face...  
  
The saliva was good, but lube was going to be necessary. Hawker reached into the nightstand to produce a small bottle that Chris used for himself, and drizzled a good amount along the end of his cock. The cool gel made his shaft twitch. He set the stuff aside and rubbed it all around his first few inches. This, too, was a new sensation - the slick clung to him like no bio fluid did, and it showed no signs of drying any time soon. The friction was lessened, replaced with a slipperiness that felt amazing in its own way, and Hawker couldn't help but take a moment to stroke himself. His huge fingers gently tugged down the foreskin with every pull, and pushed it back up across the sensitive diodes on the underside of the head. His heavy balls jerked slightly, sending another little dribble of thick, vanilla pre oozing out the hole to weep onto Chris' thigh.   
  
With that he repositioned himself, setting his boots firmly on the floor as he grabbed Chris by the knees to draw him closer to the edge of the bed.  
  
Hawker leaned in to plant a few tongue-y kisses: one on that soft-firm sac, grazing his tongue across one of those globes; another at the base of his hot little cock; one more at the tip, lingering just long enough to suck on it like a lollipop. And one more, on Chris' lips, still glistening with slick. One hand slid under his boy's ass to angle him toward the Magnus, the head of which found Chris' ass and seated firmly between those cheeks to rest against that tightly closed hole. The other found his neck, thumb tracing over the powerfully throbbing jugular artery, then over to the overworked windpipe, where he gave a little  _squeeze_.  
  
"Can't wait for you to feel better, kiddo," he rumbled into the human's ear, and gave his first slow push. "Because daddy's gonna rip you  _apart_."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris watched breathlessly as Hawker lubed up. The powerful hands of the Ares slicked up the Magnus, making the artificial shaft glisten in the low light of his room. The war machine looked thoroughly pleased with itself, and he didn't need a mental connection to know just what is about to happen.  
  
He just wasn't expecting THAT though! There's a cute gasp from him as those large lips and tongue take him in. He might be hard, but his skin is soft. Warm and throbbing, the gentle ministrations of the giant have him soong sliding his hands over that metallic brow. "Oh wow, that's.. that's really nice!.." he admits, a tremble working down his left leg. Salt from sweat, masculine scents, the natural precum; all those are the flavor's of the mech's pilot. His shaft tenses, the muscles at the base flexing as it slides along a powerful artificial tongue. Squirt! Mmmm, preseed.  
  
Chris's bare ankles rested against the shoulders of the looming giant. He lifted his arms up, putting them behind his head as he grinned up in his happy, buzzed stupor. THe drinks from dinner had him happy and relaxed.  
  
He needed to be. Even before Hawker had managed to get the magnus into position, Chris's cheeks felt the lube as the monster slid home. He met the gaze of his mechanized Daddy, letting him see that smile. It began slow, it had to. A firm press of synthetic material against willing flesh. Again the pressure mounted, the small human shifting from side to side, trying to help. There is just so much masculine dick and a small place it has to go. His toes wiggle, and the muscles in his jaw tighten up as Hawker presses inward with unyielding strength.  
  
He lifted his chin, wanting the machine to firmly grasp him. There was mild disappointment, as the threat of danger to his neck remained just a mildly executed threat. But Hawker's grin said it all. The 'Rules.' Yes, yes. Rules. He exhaled happily as Hawker growled at him. this time gaining some depth, but the poor pucker had a ways to stretch still. Chris winced. "Mmm, wanna be your toy every night Daddy, your boy needs to be FUCKED!"

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Mmm, wanna be your toy every night Daddy, your boy needs to be FUCKED!"_  
  
He was a couple inches deep. Already so tight, with  _such_  a long ways to go. Hawker smiled back. It wasn't warm or kind, but it was full of need. The servos in his knees and hips sighed with all the quiet precision of machinery tooled to the thousandths of an inch - the cellular level, if the mech were human.  
  
If Kole was serious about getting them a suite to share, then... Chris would  _definitely_  be in a position to be taken at  _least_  that often. Once upon a time, Hawker had humans to toy with at his leisure. He could have that again.  
  
"My boy," he said, pushing in a little more, bed creaking under his strength and weight. "Will learn to kneel. He will learn -" Another push. "- to have his throat fucked.  _Nnh._  And he's gonna learn, every day for the rest of his little human life, what it means to be the perfect, obedient  _pet_."  
  
Hawker drew his face in again. He grabbed a fistful of Chris' hair, drawing tight enough to get the kid to see stars, before diving in for a kiss hard enough to suck his guts out through his mouth as he plowed in to a total of 5 inches. The hulking mech finished with Chris' lip between his dental plates, which he used to break the fragile skin and draw just enough blood to look good.   
  
The tightest part of this was at the beginning, but the rest was its own kind of intensely pleasurable. Honestly, Hawker realized when his optics drifted down to marvel at how big he was in comparison to the puckered orifice he was invading, half the appeal of this laid in how deep he already was, and how deep he'd be able to go someday soon. This required complete and utter surrender on Chris' part - the mech's cock was going to be ramming into things that nature had no intention of being rammed into. The human body was endlessly fascinating. Pliable, resilient, self-healing; but also fragile and weak. All of these things he loved, and all of them would be at the fore of their time together.  
  
Chris squirmed and panted and glistened with sweat as the Magnus hilted to the prescribed 6 inches. Hawker could feel that his boy was already stretched almost to his limits, and that the delicious clenching was likely coming from a place of discomfort now. If he jerked his hips just a little bit - which he did - Hawker could feel the bend in his anatomy that most normal people didn't dare to try to navigate; at least, not as far as the two of them were planning. But Chris wasn't exactly normal, and Hawker wasn't exactly a person.   
  
_Gonna mount you proper one of these days._  
  
"How's my scab doing? Feelin' sorry for yourself, yet?" he goaded raggedly, holding his own throbbing shaft in position as Chris' body  _still_  struggled to accept it.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris felt strange tingling arching across his bare skin where Hawker's frame came close. The pale and vulnerable flesh flinching and the muscles underneath flexing at the unyielding touch of the machine. But those sensations were almost ignored because of what was happening between his cheeks.  
  
It wasn't like he was a virgin, or some uptight grunt getting a prostate exam. He wanted to have every inch of the magnus inside of him. His drunk-from-dinner mind had no concerns about the physical damage that could be done. The Ares could lift a car and run at speeds that'd match. And that machine, that force of destruction is busy forcing him open wide with it's dick.  
  
It's achingly thick shaft, big enough that the young pilot is whimpering despite the alcohol in his system. He'd need to be trained, his body opened and given time to adapt. Already ideas of him in bondage, being repeatedly plied with the magnus as Hawker found inch after inch of space inside his boy. But for now, there is a need to be gentleness. Or at the very least, nothing vigorous.  
  
But all is well. The magnus transmitted all of the wonderous sensations of a hot and tight butt. Hawker could feel the sensation of the broad head pushing the clenching muscles apart. And then, how they twitched and flexed around his new vened length. Would he feel that all the way down once he is fully sheathed in his boy? MM-Hmmm-hmmmmm!  
  
On hearing his boss's intent, how his metallic Daddy intended on turning him into a fuckpet, Chris's dick jump at full hardness and fired a string of precum across his smooth stomach. His grin said it all and he nodded until the metallic fingers slid through his hair and froze him in place. "And I'm gonna love it. And you're gonna love doing it to me."  
  
The kiss left him breathless, lips plumped and bright red. When it ended he sucked in a breath that lasted so long Hawker could see the surprise, and the shock at just how much air those lungs could hold. And the boy would learn how to fill them fast. And how to hold his breath for the long moments as he got throat-fucked. Breathing is cute, but Daddy's dick is more important then little things like being able to talk or breath.  
  
Chris looked up at the smirking face of his massive kevlar Daddy. "Sore.. hurts.. want more.. heh.. fuck me boss! Geeze! Ah.. damn your dick is BIG!"

 

* * *

 

 

Chris smelled amazing this close. The faint tang of blood from his lip, musk and clean sweat, pheromones and the heady scent of fluids.   
  
Hawker swallowed a deep grunt of approval.  
  
_"Sore.. hurts.. want more.. heh.. fuck me boss! Geeze! Ah.. damn your dick is BIG!"_  
  
Staring, almost entranced by the sight of the wiggling, clenching little body beneath him, the mech withdrew. Then a big, gray hand reached down to cover the pilot's mouth, fingers firmly gripping at that handsome jaw. Then with a quick jerk of his hips, he thrust back in.  
  
Chris would feel that mammoth shaft plow right back into his softest, most sensitive anatomy. Even with the lube, Hawker knew something was going to bleed at least a little, and the thought made his balls twitch. Hot damn, everything felt amazing! Chris was like tight, quivering velvet around him. As fragile as tissue paper, as needy as a child. In, out. In out. For a brief second Hawker wondered what it was like to have a prostate, but he didn't dwell on it for long. He wouldn't trust the man that told him there could be sensations better than this.   
  
The Magnus was wired in such a way that fed a number of different pleasure centers, lighting them up like oscillating Christmas lights one after the other. When he finally picked up his pace, rolling in and out of his little warm, fleshy fucksleeve, his programming went wild with stimulation. HUDs were forgotten. The soles of his boots left black marks on the linoleum floor and the bed creaked angrily. Chris' breaths came hitched and throaty as every one of Hawker's invasions pushed the air from his very lungs.  
  
"I fucking  _own_  you, got it?" he hissed dangerously, slamming back in and threatening 6 and a half inches of forearm-thick cock. "Just because the 9081 is out of commission doesn't mean that I can't still end you." In. "Can't still break you one-handed."  _In._  "Can't still  _eat you alive_ , scab."  
  
He reached down to wrap his own fist around himself. God, he couldn't wait to stuff the entirety of himself up that tight little ass! Couldn't wait to see the look on Chris' face as he took every grueling inch until there was barely enough room for his own organs! Hawker's other hand tightened on his face just enough to leave red marks but no bruises.  
  
"And mark my words, kiddo, I've got all three on my bucket list." A pause for cycling air, for grunting and groaning, for licking his lip like a predator salivating before a kill. "Now get comin' for me, boy. Daddy wants to fuck you dry."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris screamed into the suffocating palm of the Ares's broad hand. Hawker kept enough pressure on him that his smaller frame stayed put on the bed. Of course this meant that no matter how many times the fat shaft plied him open, there was no reprieve.  
  
That sublimely smooth behind bounced, his cheeks jiggling, the impossibly overlarge girth of the magnus plugging him and demolishing his poor anal ring. Flecks of blood sprayed outward each time the dick hauled outward. What a sight! The magnus truly matched the powerful robot it is attached to. THe heavy tool did not yield a millimeter, it dug and plowed into supple flesh.  
  
If Chris was the normal kind of guy, he'd be fighting for his life. He'd be trying to get away, to escape what is being told to him by the looming machine as it fucked him. But, instead..  
  
His cock -throbbed- and flexed. It bounced on his stomach, leaking precum as his balls were drawn up tightly to the base. The unhealthy danger of being sodomised by his daddy robot excited him to no end! THe pain, the gleaming yellow eyes of his boss, the way the smile twists the features of that handsome face..  
  
Chris wasted no time in wrapping his left hand around his dick and jerking. He caught his own preseed with his fingertips, slicking his shaft and working it from based to tip. When his hand gets to the very end it swirls around the tip and he draws out another few drips of natural lubricant.   
  
Wet tears mark the corners of his eyes. His breaths come in rapid pants that batter over the thick fingers. His tongue pushes out, swabbing the metallic palm, tracing into the grippy rubber pads. It hurts, it feels amazing, it's how he knows to love. The sensation of his legs on the torso of his metallic partner, the knowledge that -nothing- will keep Hawker out of him..  
  
He smiles into that hand, lust surging through him as his battered tunnel clenches and spasms around the magnus as he edges right on the peak of spurting!

 

* * *

 

 

The blood hit his olfactory system and a warm ping reverberated around the circuitry in his titanium head like a radar contact. In smaller fireteam operations, homing in on blood was just as much of a boon as homing in on pheromone signatures - you could locate your wounded, or zero in on a weakened target for easy elimination. But Hawker wasn't a human operator coolly processing a datastream feed; Hawker was Hawker, a specially designed variation of the Deep Field 2 technology, and whoever made him wanted him to  _like_  blood.  
  
A tiny smear got on him where his hand gripped his own shaft. The monstrous android body halted his movement, holding still as he lifted this other hand to Chris' face and unceremoniously plunged in two fingers streaked with lube, blood, and Hawker's fluids. Chris took them like quivering putty, his lips so plump ans his breath so warm and ragged against the high-resolution haptic pads on the underside of the mech's digits.  
  
_Soft,_  Hawker thought.  _Too soft._  Something in him wanted to punish the boy for existing.  
  
"Stay quiet," he growled dangerously. There was no smile on his face. "Make a sound, kiddo, and I  _will_  hurt you."  
  
Just saying the words, and seeing Chris' cock jump at their utterance, pushed him nearly to the edge. Again, he started moving. He wanted to hear the heavy slap of his thighs against Chris' raw ass, the feeling of his new balls pounding against that pliable skin. But not this time. Not for a while.  
  
Hawker rumbled his frustration, and picked up his rough pace with his fingers still in Chris' mouth while the others held his face like a steely gray vice. Chris looked equal parts happy and miserable - the intense pain and intense pleasure both reaching a fever pitch - and it was clear he was approaching the edge too. Who would reach the finish line first? I didn't fucking matter.  
  
The mech plowed into his abused hole roughly, impatient now to finally christen the Magnus. It was right around the corner, he could feel it. His cock drooled inside his tiny human, and the wet sucking sounds grew more obscene.  
  
"Mm. Nnn... Almost fucking there...!"

 

* * *

 

 

Things are stirring within the small human as the mechanical brute ruts. His protesting body certainly had things stirring, his guts and organs rioting the immense invasion of Hawker's Magnus.  
  
That girthy shaft had no problem smashing Chris's prostate with each inward thrust. It pushed against the sensitive gland, bullying it and forcing the boy to intense arousal and pressing him toward that orgasam that he's hanging on the edge of.  
  
_"Make a sound, kiddo, and I will hurt you."_  
  
Vagueness. There are memories of other times. With other people.  
  
Hawker isn't other people. He's a force, and intensity that's burying itself up inside him. The snarling, metallic face over his own fills his vision. It hurts inside. Not just the normal pain of being fucked, damage is being done. Damage that will make him ache for days if not longer. He's going to hurt, it will hurt every time, and that's what them being together is.  
  
He gurgles against fingers. His tongue slips between them, slipping amongst digits almost as large as his own dick size.  
  
There are tears on the adorable face, red marks where he's been gripped tightly. The thrusting rocks him on the bed, the material of the mattress creaking.   
  
Then he cums. It splatters across his stomach, a belly that bulges when Hawker gets as deep as he possibly can. Those anal muscles of his contract and shudder around the Magnus as he fires out what had been building up. Tremors shake through him, he sucks in greedy breaths as he looks up to the giant looming over him.   
  
Those tear-filled eyes find Hawker's yellow-glowing optics, begging for mercy. Begging to be filled.

 

* * *

 

 

No words as Chris came. Not even a sound - the kid was good at this. Hawker noted the look of recognition in his eyes, though. It seemed to ground and center him like a Buddhist's mantra. Interesting.  
  
Moisture on his fingers. The sound of wetness, the rhythmically creaking bed frame.  
  
Chris tightened around him in time with those muscle-clenching spurts, and Hawker's foreprocessors began to fizzle with warm, hazy static as the inputs from the Magnus thrummed in his pleasure centers with all the raw intensity of a rolling wave. The tide was coming in.  
  
Hawker clenched his jaw like a human would, strained the hydraulic fibers of his neck, hunched his shoulders, and rolled with tightly-controlled ferocity into his slackening plaything. He removed his fingers from Chris' mouth and used both hands to steady the little human. Heat. Heat everywhere.  
  
The DF2 came. It was nothing like he'd experienced before: his new balls jerked, tightened, and he could  _feel_  them unload their cargo.  _Throb throb._  Up and out.   
  
"Shit!" he hissed, grinding his denta together like he was in pain as his body spasmed above and around his warm little cocksleeve - far from it! The mech grunted another swear as he was rocked for a fifth time by the Ares' response to the powerful stimuli.  _Spurt spurt._  Jesus Christ, the pleasure! "Fuck," he rumbled after taking a few moments to come-to, making sure he was done filling his boy full of machine spunk. When his air cycling kicked down, he withdrew. Chris made a noise.  
  
"Good job, boy," he said as he climbed up onto the bed with a heavy creak to press the end of his STILL-hard length to Chris' cheek. Hawker looked down past his powerful torso to the log spilling out past the fly of his pants, thick enough to bludgeon his pilot to death with.  _Now clean me off,_  was the unspoken order. He'd let the device flag after this. "You look good underneath me," he went on, quietly, lazily. "Taking my dick like that... too bad that wasn't all of it." A chuckle.

 

* * *

 

 

What leaked out from Chris wasn't white and creamy. It is pink and contains the agony of what is taking Hawker's size. He'll learn to take it one day. But for now he groans, trembles ensuring that he'll remember what pleasures come from letting Hawker inside.

His mind felt strange, foggy, like he wasn't all there. He needs both hands to help guide the Magnus up to his mouth. He licks slow, tongue gathering and spreading the truly astounding amount of synthetic spooge that coats and drips from that 14 inch tool. So cute like that, a calm and obedient human obey his robotic boss.

Seems like shooting rope from getting internally stimulated took quite a bit out of the young pilot. His eyelids are droopy, and it's almost like he's drunk as he obeys.

He pushed his cheek against the length, the warmth of his flushed face making those millions of sensors tingle. He strokes down, feeling over the unloaded balls, slipping them between the perfectly toned legs of the Ares chassis. Then he looks upward, eyes tracing the venting for of his boss.

Hawker is smiling.

That gets the boy smiling, puts a little energy in those ministrations of the heavy tool. "Mpfh. Yes sir. You'll be all the way in soon 'nuff I'm sure." Hawker can see that the kid is flagging though. A full meal, a proper orgasam, his daddy happy; the kid is just about to fall over.

 

* * *

  

  _"Mpfh. Yes sir. You'll be all the way in soon 'nuff I'm sure."_  
  
The alpha AI beamed with pride - in that subtle, flippant way of his - as he took in the view one last time before sliding back off the bed to wrestle his cock back into his pants. He'd hit the motor pool's wash station later, potential onlookers be damned.  
  
Behind him, Chris was still recovering on the bed. Already almost half-asleep from his exertion, making little sounds in his throat from the lingering pain of being ridden by his machine. What was he feeling, thinking? Was he reliving memories, or was his mind blank with the rosy haze of an endorphin high? Hawker the mech was suddenly aware of their mental disconnection, and he wanted with a peculiar severity to be in his pilot's mind right now.  
  
He minded the Ares' battery, and discovered that he still had a good 38 hours of charge at this current output. He didn't  _need_  to go back downstairs. He didn't  _need_  to plug himself into a gantry, or a wall outlet, or file reports, or train in the Sim Room, or yell at cadets. He didn't  _need_  to do  _anything_  right now. This was  _his_  time, the Vanguard Hawker realized. Being off-duty had suddenly come to... mean something.  
  
Still, his instinct was to get ready to pack up and leave. But, as he looked around with those yellow optics, this wasn't the motor pool. This was Chris' room.  _I'm in my pilot's **room**_ , he repeated to himself internally, letting it sink in. Sure, he'd been in here before. But not like this. Not in a body he could actually consider a second home.  
  
Hawker turned back to Chris, gently taking a seat on the edge of the bed, absolutely dwarfing both the human and the piece of furniture.  _Creeeeeeaaak._  Optics scanned the floor, and he spotted a shirt on the floor. He grabbed it and held it out to the young man.  
  
"I never read your entire file, you know," he said quietly. "Kole censored about a quarter of it before handing it off to me. I don't really know anything about what your life was before you started getting into trouble on the street, and you do a damn good job of forgetting about it when we're linked." He wasn't sure where he was going with this. "You're gonna have to tell me someday, kid."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris took the shirt with a shaking hand. His whole body is still quaking with the feeling of cumming from internal pressures. It wasn't like jerking off, or even being sucked. Hawker had pushed it out of him with the mech's immense girth. After slipping the shirt over his chest, he put the shirt on the bed, inching his hips onto it. He was on his side, his legs are still made of jelly and the tingling sensation of being plowed wasn't going anywhere.

Neither was the deep ache within him.

Those taut arms pulled the pilot forward, until he could rest his head int he lap of the mech. His legs twitched, hips and insides aching. Hawker just might kill him to get full sheathed. KInda would be worth it though, seeing the way the big 'bot is looking down at him.

"There's parts I can remember. I'll tell you about those when we're linked up. I don't want to ever.. um, speak 'em. As far as the other stuff?"

He sighed, arm squeezing the metallic though, feeling how it could tense under the camouflaged pants.

"Then there's the things I don't really remember. I can tell you about what the said happened to me. What they said I did back when I was really small. It's not fun and it'll kill your boner for a week. Don't like talking about those times much, but .." he exhaled through pursed lips, making a thbbbbpt sound. "..It's like talking about a movie, like it didn't happen to me."

\-----

Tsung smirked at Leslie Wen. Wen is bright red, and a tremble went through her. The two of them were on the couch, giving only the slightest impression that they were actually gaming. 

Tsung spoke first. Her voice soft and low, as not to be overhead. "Think Hawker's done. Can't hear Celn yelping."

Wen shushed the other voyeur, as if suddenly Hawker would burst out. "Don't say that!" came her warm, fierce whisper. "Think he'll have to go down to medical?"  
"Hope not, but he's gonna be back in the wheelchair."

"Oh god, your'e terrible!"

"Pffft. Terrible is what I'm going to be thinking about later. Can you imagine? The shoulders on the Ares... mmmm..."

Wen was silent for a long moment, then admitted "And the butt on it.. and the arms..."

"Bulge?" mouthed Tsung, before the smirk turned into a grin.

Wen turned the brightest shade of red yet.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Chris was spent. Utterly spent. Honestly? It was a sight the mech could get used to. He wanted to see the kid like this at the close of every day, as he pulled himself, weak and trembling, into bed.  
  
_"There's parts I can remember. I'll tell you about those when we're linked up. I don't want to ever.. um, speak 'em. As far as the other stuff?"_  
  
Linked, huh? On the surface, he "got" it. But at the same time... what a peculiarly raw way to prefer to relive what were surely some horrific memories. If the hype was to be believed, that is.  
  
_"..It's like talking about a movie, like it didn't happen to me."_  
  
Hawker nodded, though  _this_  he didn't quite understand. His own memories, his sense of past events, was different than this. He could relive things with as much clarity as the present moment, and when pieces were missing, he imagined that they were a different experience than that had with wetware. Clearer at times, obfuscated at others, and its own kind of jumbled mess of information.  _I remember, therefore I am._  
  
The mech wasn't sure where to go from here. Chris seemed to be... vaguely expectant, as if he was waiting for his captain to give his next order. As if he even had the wherewithal to obey now. Still, something about this made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was the sudden lull between them, or the looming emotional intimacy, or the distant threat of Chris' sordid upbringing coming to light - hell, maybe it was all three - that was making Hawker, Big Nine, fidget like a first-time perp in the interrogation room.  
  
No. He couldn't do this. Not yet.  
  
"I see," he responded lamely. His baritone lent gravitas to the answer, of course, but Chris had known him long enough to see through it, probably. It was a few long seconds of letting his thick fingers amble through the kids hair before he had to excuse himself. Gently he relocated Chris' head to the mattress and stood up. "I'm gong downstairs to hose off. I'll..." A pause to formulate his plan. "I'll be back."  
  
\---  
  
"Fuck, fuck, he's coming!" Wen hissed, making sure she was facing the TV screen, and trying to will her hands to stop shaking as somebody jiggled Chris' door handle. Somebody? Like hell would Nine's boy be able to even  _stand_  after all that!  
  
Tsung stifled a giggle as she, too, planted herself in front of the game to try and look convincing. She would up wheezing uncontrollably.   
  
Hawker stepped out of the suite, ducking through the doorway. Wen dared a quick glance out of the corner of her eye - completely unaware that they were back at a menu screen - and saw that monument to masculinity as he stepped into the common area, about to make his way to the elevator.  
  
But he stopped. "What're you two ladies playing?" he asked. God, that voice!  
  
"I-I... er, w-we... we're, uh, it's..." Wen found herself stammering. She shut her mouth and swore, for the umpteenth time, that she wouldn't do it ever again.  
  
"God of War," Tsung blurted. She was clearly caught off-guard by being addressed. "S-six. God of War, six one. Did you know they make six? Very popular game."  
  
That massive Ares frame had stopped just behind her, his hands on either side of her shoulders on the back of the couch as he assessed the  _fascinating_  information that the menu screen was telling him. "This chassis was named after the same," he said. Leslie Wen could almost feel the back of her scalp vibrate from his voice -  _ohmygodohmygod_. "Maybe I'll actually have a chance at beating you, Tsung." The captain chuckled. "I'll play nice for you though, Wen."  
  
Then he moved his hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze before stepping out.  
  
Wen and Tsung, still on that damn menu screen, just looked at each other for a few seconds before bursting into uncontrollable giggles.  
  
"He gonna play nice for  _you_ ," Tsung mimed, snorting.   
  
Wen threw a pillow at the other pilot, face hot. She could only imagine how red she was. "Shut up, oh my god!"  
  
\---  
  
Boots, boxers, and pants in a pile outside.  
  
Inside, Hawker had initiated the wash program for the police cruisers. Way more water than the little Ares frame needed, but that didn't matter. He had a hard-bristled scrub brush in hand, going over his thighs, when his sensors picked something up from behind. Pheromones and sweat - a late-night workout to take the mind off of some improper thoughts, was the obvious first answer.  
  
He stopped what he was doing and stood there in the hard jet of water. "You stink," he said.  
  
"Yeah? So do you. And it's the kind that soap can't clean."  
  
The mech turned around, flashed that set of yellow eyes. "Big talk, Becker."  
  
The young man was shirtless, in a pair of gray sweats, with white earbuds slung around his thick neck as he leaned against the entrance to the wash bay. "Says the guy scrubbin' his dick in the fucking motor pool."  
  
There was something else, though. He could smell it. "I'm impressed, shitbird. Most guys wilt like daisies when they try to work out  _high_."  
  
"There's a lot about me you don't know. Like how badly I could kick Celn's pansy ass."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"You heard me."  
  
Hawker told the program to stop, and like that, the sprayer nozzles shut off all at once. The place was deathly quiet all of a sudden.  
  
"You two are a disaster waiting to happen," Becker continued, righting himself and folding his arms like he was some kind of fucking tough guy. "You're both fucked. Face it - he's too unstable. What you need is  _me_. A pilot you can can actually depend on."  
  
Cory Becker, standing as six and change, was still not even nose-height when Hawker stepped over to stand uncomfortably close to the lieutenant. "I don't need a shitbird in my cockpit." He brushed past the young man and, suddenly in a rush, toweled down before reaching for his clothes.  
  
"Lee was a shitbird."  
  
Hawker bristled.  
  
"What, you gonna hit me like you hit Celn? Get fuckin' hard over it?"  
  
With a fluid sweep of his foot, Becker's legs were knocked out from under him and he went tumbling to the floor with an idiotic cry. The room was spinning for the lieutenant now, and he looked up at the mech, stoned and indignant as he rubbed at his ankle.  
  
"His name was  _captain Davidson_ , to you. And don't you goddamn forget it."  
  
Pants on for the bare minimum of decency, everything else under his arm as he got out of there. As far as he knew, Becker was still on the floor by the time the elevator doors closed and he hit the button for the pilot's dorm.


	24. The Gentleman *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the Mayor's reception, among other things.

Chris dragged the shirt lazily between his legs. THere was an impressive amount of lubricant, and he could feel Hawker's load leaking out, along with the occasional fart. Ah, lovemaking.   
  
At least the mech had the decency to close the door. Chris knew he wouldn't be walking anytime soon. He couldn't even feel his legs! Knowing he was in the middle of, and cuasing the wet spot, Celn dropped the black shirt over his groin for some modesty and closed his eyes.  
  
Hawker is chatting up some of the girls. You could hear everything through the thin walls in the pilot's quarters, and what they'd just done wasn't going to be any kind of secret. He closed his eyes and listened to the thumping of those heavy boots as the Ares chassis left. Then there was an explosion of giggles and he had to smile. He felt pride in his chest, and he lazily dragged a hand through his hair. He'd gotted fucked by the biggest stud around and felt the ache and joy anyone with submissive instincts savored. He'd survived and opened himself to more.  
  
He closed his eyes, and the exhaustion pulled him into welcome unconsciousness.  
  
\----------------------  
  
Cory Becker is unhappy. Al, the trainer who had helped him finally get past 190 pounds of muscle, was gone for good. They kept in touch, sure. They'd send messages about their progress on their builds, but he missed having someone friendly around. Friendly competition, anyway. Most people here, they just didn't get it.  
  
Jack did. The guy is a monster, and always was down for putting bullets downrange. Loser pays for shots! And Tsung, that sweet honey is a cutthroat. Mmmpf! She didn't give an inch in anything, fighting for anything she'd got. She knew what it was to overcome problems, anyone with Chinese heritage had problems these days.   
  
Shirtless, fifteen pound ankle weights on, he struggled with his tenth set of leg-lifts reps that hour. He still had another hours before he call it quits for today. He loved the looks pudgy cops gave him. A body like his was something you could only get and keep with EFFORT. You had to eat right, sleep, and put in the time getting big. It was how police worked, should work anyway. You do good, excel over everyone at your level and get promoted. Right?  
  
Unless you are Celn or Hawker.  
  
That spiked up ache in his thighs, and he powered through his set. He tensed up, then sprung forward in a roll, hopping on his feet from a prone position. "Ta-Da!" he exclaimed to the empty weight room. He missed having an audience. Plunking his hands down on the wide arms of a fixed brace. Legs bending at the knees, he began to lift himself up and down with his arms, deep breaths moving through his nose.  
  
There is something wrong with Celn. Something beyond that addictive personality. He saw how they hadn't even trusted the runt with ibuprofen. That's what good police officers did, they watched. The rookie is a ticking time bomb. He is gonna break under the pressure, and when he does? Better not be in the 9081.  
  
That was the other half of the problem. Hawker.  
  
Back when Davidson was around, Becker had admired the man. THe guy had the drive to be the best, had an amazing set of delts too, and he kept Hawker in line. The robot was professional back then. Davidson probably would have retired in about five years? Cory dropped down after twenty, feeling the way his shoulders were crying for mercy with relish. Water.  
  
Cory would have been the right guy for the job then. Peak mental and physical condition. Perfect for getting the 9081, keeping it moving along like nothing had changed. He wasn't specialised, but he would have had any other candidate beat out. And He knew that old Hawker respected that kind of drive.  
  
In the mirror, he gave himself a wink. Striking the classic muscleman pose, then turning to the side and admiring his biceps as they hung thickly on his upper arms. He filled out his blues, and had been Mr December two years in a row on the charity calendar.  
  
Racking the ankle weights, he went for the bottled protein and the elevator. He had a personal stash down in the vehicle bay, and as long as you weren't on duty, plenty of things were legal these days.  
  
Like fucking your superior. Or your partner. Or your subordinate. That is some grade-A Bullshit! Anyone else woulda been sent to HR and out of 42 faster then you can say 'involuntary leave.'  
  
Cory kicked the wall of the elevator in frustration, feeling some satisfaction as the box clanged around him.  
  
Hawker's hissy fit had put Becker out of work for a week. During the most important week! Cory had to work at the station, help the people around it, while keeping his implant on ice. That was bullshit too.  
  
Clen got his hand held and babysitting from the top brass. Hawker got a hulking frame and.. supposedly, a big fat pussy-wrecker. That Chris brought for him. Unfair! How the fuck were they supposed to be the best when they didn't work for that kind of treatment?  
  
Cory let out the tensed breath as the cavernous underground space opened to him. At the back of his ATV, he sorted through his locker and pulled out his vape pen. Mixing up his favorite juices and cannabis oil, he breathed in a long pull once the coil warmed up. Blowing it out as two rings, he took a second before putting the pen back on it's charger. He held his breath as he made the long walk towards then end of the bay. It came out his nose as he stared at the partially-assembled 9081.  
  
He could still dream. He'd felt that power surge. He'd felt their two minds, meant to merge. He missed that rush. He wanted to crush the enemy again!  
  
Beck stood there, stretching, wishing he could go back and prove himself, as he felt the relaxation spread through him. TIme went nice and gentle when you were stoned in a place like this.  
  
*BRRRRRVVVVZZZZZZZZFFFFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTT!*  
  
The familiar sounds of the wash spun up. "The fuck?" uttered Cory. He hadn't heard anyone drive in. Was it Simmons? As he walked down to check on who was pulling a late rinse, he smirked. Maybe it was Mendez again and that sweet vintage Firebird. Despite getting an earful from Colburn, the black and gold car still got wash once a month in the depths of 42.   
  
His mellow high abruptly ended when he saw what was getting a rinse. Fucking robot. Literally. Damn. Someone wasn't shirking in the cold water jets.  
  
All that anger, the way he'd been pushed aside for some machine's bitch pushed though his daze. Cory opened his mouth...  
  
\--------  
  
Learning to fall safely, they taught you that early in a dojo. Old training kicked in, and he didn't crack his head on the concrete as he went down. Fuck, the Ares is fast! He'd barely seen it coming, a basic legsweep.  
  
He stayed there, thinking. And then an idea came to Cory Becker. And idea that made him smile, showing off his even rows of white teeth. "Yeah. Yeah, I won't forget it scrapheap." Rolling onto his left side, Cory casually swept the dirt off his shoulders and pulled out his phone. In 50 seconds, tinder had him a match. 'I'm fresh from the gym babe.' He texted.  
  
Becker had a plan now, and damn if it wasn't good. He'd see it through too.  
  
\--------  
  
Jane listened to Wen, her sandwich untouched. "Think the beframe survived?"  
  
"I think so, springs got a workout through."  
  
"Oh lord, the two of you are the worst."  
  
"Like you don't wanna take him for a ride? Who doesn't want a stallion?" teased Tsung, obviously loving how Wen was staying a shade of pink.  
  
"They're an adorable couple. Can you imagine them holding hands? Kissing?"  
  
There is a long moment of reverent silence, then:  
  
"Kissing what?"  
  
"Jane!" came Tsung's mock-shock as their fellow pilot dug into her dinner.

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker stood in the elevator, head low otherwise his antennae would hit the ceiling. He was still as stone and felt about as cold and heavy.  
  
That entitled, self-important piece of work. Ungrateful. Petty. Fucking  _childish_  little...! The mech clenched his fist, not even hearing the metal of his own palm give a faint creak, or the servos in his forearm whir at the strain. He shuttered his optics and vented a controlled burst of air.  
  
This had been a good evening not five minutes ago.   
  
Becker did not have a filter. It had gotten in trouble before, and it was going to get him in trouble again. Big trouble. Hawker could feel it building in his CPUs - the retaliation, the flood of words. If Becker continued trying to creep out of his lane, then somebody was going to need to put him back.  
  
Kole was keeping his hands out of it, which was usually how he preferred to handle disputes among his team.  _Let them fight it out. What doesn't kill 'em makes 'em stronger._  Usually, the tough love worked at 42. But Cory's little tantrums didn't show any sign of going away. The kid was probing for a weakness to  _exploit_ , and his comment about Lee had cut the mech deeper than he initially realized. Once upon a time, Cory Becker had looked up to Davidson almost as much as the 9081's Deep Field 2.  
  
_Ding._  
  
Hawker stepped out, his stride stiffer, his posture more brooding than before. Wen and Tsung giggled, hissed a few words at each other as he rounded the corner and approached, but they noticed his suddenly foul mood and quieted down. Their eyes were on him, confused, as he silently went to the kitchen to grab Chris a cup of water before he retreated to his pilot's suite and closed the door behind him.  
  
\--  
  
Inside, he sat down on the bed again and set the cup on the nightstand, taking care not to put it too close to his boy's new tablet. Wouldn't want it to spill.  
  
Chris stirred a little, and Hawker watched him laying prone there in the mess of sheets. Small human, small bed, small room. Small Hawker.  
  
The boy mumbled something into the pillow, bringing a nearly invisible smile to the corner of his rugged, pewter-hued mouth. "Staying here tonight," he said quietly, trying to forget about Becker for now. Tonight was something of a milestone after all. He would slip into low-power mode in here with his boy and wake up with a soft, smiling, fuckable little thing in his arms. It would be goddamn  _great_.  
  
"Move over, kiddo. Daddy's comin' to bed."  
  
Carefully he maneuvered himself along the small piece of furniture, still not sure if it would hold both their weight, until he was laying on it and sort of resembling a normal person in a bed. It was an odd feeling. Especially since his feet hung over the end of it.   
  
Eventually Chris would get comfortable, Hawker would put one arm around him and the other behind his head, and he would power down for his first night in human habitation.  
  
\--  
  
Tara Noh sat in her apartment, lounging on the leather couch with a martini in hand looking like some exotic celebrity of the roaring twenties, now almost 150 years ago. Her smoky evening makeup was still immaculate, and she looked out at the city through the full-length windows of her 25th floor unit, thinking.  
  
Saseer and the rest of Blue Sky would not like this development. Not one bit. But  _surely_ , they should have known that Ishcheyka could not have been eliminated so easily? Especially not by a bunch of those tin cans. Noh didn't know the end-game, and neither did anyone else she knew. Michael was itching to get revenge for what happened to his uncle, and the S-class pilot was indeed chafing against the order to lie low. The man had one opportunity to take the DF2  _and_  its pilot down for good, and nobody was going to risk acting prematurely.  
  
But Blue Sky's plans were, she knew, much bigger than 42, much bigger than Ishcheyka. The attacks on the data centers was just a prelude to the chaos that they were planning to unleash; but Tara didn't know anything more than that.  
  
Still, the mech was her problem in a way. The thought of it prowling the city streets like rabid dog, thirsty for blood, gave her the chills. There had to be a way to cripple the AI before it could get too comfortable in this new body, and before it ever had the chance to return to its deadly place in the Vanguard chassis.   
  
She sat there, lounging as she sipped the martini for a while longer, wracking her brain. It was after midnight when something came to mind. Tara spent a few more minutes mulling it over. Eventually, a smile spread across her flawless face when she realized that her idea just might work.  
  
Saseer would be pleased.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris groaned softly as the Ares gingerly clambered into the full-sized bed. He could hear the metal frame of the furniture creaking. He scooted so Hawker would have room, knowing that the if he went any further he'd fall off the edge. THe deep impression in the mattress from the weight had him rolling back, and then he was grasped. A thrill went through him, and soft happy sighs escaped him. Exhausted as he was, it wasn't had to fall asleep with the big bot behind him.  
  
=----------=  
  
It was around 4 AM when Corey Becker returned to the station. It wasn't that he minded taking a shower in a girl's apartment, just that they didn't have his preferred product. Twenty minutes later he was back in his private room. Towel around his waist, the metal basket of toiletries goes to rest in the usual spot next to the door. A soft bristle brush dragged through his smooth, straight hair as he checked himself out in the mirror. A self-assured smile rested on the handsome face looking back at him. The towel wen ton a bar next to the basket, and a nude becker sat down at his desk.  
  
Left hand casually tapped out his password into the sleek laptop, while the right reached for a pair of designer headphones. Queueing up the next in the series of operating instructions for the HLX vanguard chassis, Becker brought up his playlists. STUDY: Rhythmic EDM got selected. Then he inserted the plug into the back of his neck. Data in, music in. Hands clenched into fists, forehead on knuckles. He will learn every inch of the 9801, the AI's griping be damned.  
  
The muscled cop became still, breathing coming in slow pulls as information flooded into him.  
  
=---------=  
  
Leslie Wen stifled a yawn. Swing shifts were the worst! She'd gone off duty just 6 hours ago, and here she was about to head back down and be back on the job. As she sipped a cup of 37F, (a superior caffeinated hot beverage), a thought struck her slow mind. Chris's door had been left open a touch. Or maybe it'd just failed to latch? Either way, she knew a way to brighten up her day.  
  
Out came her phone, she turned the camera to record and pushed it through the crack in the door. Turning it left and right slowly, then withdrawning it while pulling the door closed with a gentle *click.*  
  
While the room was quite boring, rom 4 to 7 seconds, she'd scored quite the image. Hawker'd thick frame, barely on the bed, arm protectively around a nude chris. Nothing revealing, just the two of them at peace.   
  
_Cuddling._  
  
Wen allowed herself a giggle as she got in the elevator, holding the phone to her chest while a bounce entered her step. Her ship is SO coming in! But what would you call the pair? Tsung wanted Chawker. Jane thought Hawkhris wasn't too bad. Wen thought 'Adorable' was the best choice.   
  
=-------------------=  
  
The poor bed at least had the decency to wait until 8:47 before it'd had enough. Perhaps it was the way the suspended legs of the Ares helped leverage the already over-capacity frame, but either way the metal slowly bent until the foot of the bed rested on the floor. It was right around the moment he was having a dream about going down a slide into a root beer float that Chris woke up. Hawker's grip might be preventing him from leaving his side, but the two of them and the mattress hand just finished a not-so-graceful spill onto the floor. Tired, he briefly considered trying to go back to sleep. No, not with his arm being pinched like that.  
  
A warm hand gently prodded at Hawker's chin, fingers scrabbling around and shaking the robot. "Hnn. 'ake up 'lready. This is yer fault, ya know.."  
  
He sighed as Hawker seemed perversely intent of resting longer. "Didn't even have th' decency to break it while pounding me.."

 

* * *

 

 

The DF2 came back to life as soon as his sensors detected the sudden... change in altitude.  
  
_"Hnn. 'ake up 'lready. This is yer fault, ya know.."_  
  
The mech snorted as the little fingers lazily jabbed at his face, and he broke out unto a chuckle at his pilot's second comment.   
  
"I've been awake for a while, mind you. Just wasn't exactly  _eager_  to address how ridiculous I felt. Now c’mon, c’mon, get off me," he grumbled with a grin, patting Chris on the ass as he freed himself from the mess of bedding to stand up and survey the damage. He shook his head and rubbed his chin. "M'afraid not even Colburn will be able to save this," he laughed. He cocked his head at the boy still on the bed like a lazy piece of shit.  
  
“You need a shower,” he announced. When Chris didn’t move right away, he clapped his hands together, once, but loud enough to have startle someone a few doors down the hall, then barked a laugh. “Move it kid,  _move it!_ ”  
  
\---  
  
Colburn was just taking her first step off the elevator and into the fabrication lab, setting down her coffee and undoing her enormous winter coat. On the desk beside her computer was a little side-project; something she had just about completed the night before. In her head she’d started calling it the Slug for some reason - not that it really resembled one, but the word just seemed to fit.   
  
The device, cobbled together from 3D printed parts and other miscellany lying around, bore a little resemblance to the first generations of vape pens - clunky things with hookah mouthpieces, fitted with all sorts of electronics and reservoirs for the glycerin mixture.  
  
This, though, was for Hawker. She was still leery about giving it to him - Colburn sometimes wondered if she’d ever be able to trust him as completely as Lee did - but she worked on it anyway because, for some reason, she had this idea that if Hawker could experience inebriation, then that might make him more sympathetic to human interests.  
  
Wasn’t he already, though? Just... not in the usual way. In a distinctly ‘Hawker’ way, right?  
  
This was an experiment at the end of the day, either way - she’d asked Doctor Morris for her input, and the response was one of eager curiosity, of course. Then again, Bea didn’t know the DF2’s morbid history. Could it bring up latent memories? Could it turn him violent, irritable? Could it -  
  
Colburn stopped herself, and after a moment, allowed herself to chuckle at this line of questioning. What she was  _really_  asking, after all, was:  _what kind of drunk is Hawker?_  
  
Now  _that_  was the stuff of another betting pool.  
  
With a little smile and a little sigh, the Chief Engineer sat down at her desk to put the finishing touches on the Slug’s software, making triple-extra-sure that it would trigger the correct protocols once  _ingested_.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris returned from the long and extra-special shower to applause as he and a damp Hawker returned to the pilot's lounge. At first he was confused, then his face wet red as Jane and Ferdinand applauded the pair.  
  
The broken bed frame is quite visible from the open door to Chris's room.   
  
Chris is still hobbling, trying to make do without the crutches, and he barely holds onto his towel as he joins in their laugher. "Yes yes. ALLRIGHT! We broke the freaking bed! And not even while we were fucking! It just couldn't hold us up all night."  
  
Jane rolled her eyes while Ferdinand smirked. "Sure thing, you got yourself a Don Juan, and the first night you two are together the bed is ruined." He shook his head. "Better put the mattress on the floor or get something with shock-absorbers." As a suitably embarrassed Celn hobbled by, Hawker got a fist bump and a warm smile from the hispanic pilot. Chris closed the door, and got dressed. "Any word when they'll be done with the 9801? I saw they got the right leg back on yesterday." piped up Jane.  
  
Hawker settled on his metallic feet. At 6-8 barefoot, he was able to make it through most doors without ducking too much. Boots on, he'd be doing a crouch. The Ares mkIII chassis still looked at the closed door, optics subtly adjusting. "Colburn estimates late January for operation testing."  
  
Ferdinand wasn't the only one who noticed how Hawker kept a close watch on his pilot. Jane wasn't sure if this would be considered creepy. It's be creepy if he was doing it to her. What did .. no, she knew what Chris thought. he'd bought -that- out of his own pocket. As Chris emerged in his sweats, the robot barked orders like a drill sergeant and the pilot scrambled on his crutches to obey. But as they waited for the elevator, the smaller hand wrapped around the index and middle fingers of the Ares chassis. Did the mech lean in towards it's pilot, just a touch?  
  
After they'd left she offered a petite smile to Ferdinand. "Alright, I owe you for that bet, but how about a little double-or nothing?"  
He grinned, crossing his arms and leaning back. He and three others had made a killing on breaking the bed by morning.   
  
\----  
  
The day before a fancy dinner party wasn't exactly when Detective Costa wanted to be sitting in shotgun in a dark grey SUV. Driving is a woman in heavy winter clothes and black sunglasses, her FBI badge had been pulled on him yesterday. Agent Akes.   
  
During the Chicago invasion Costa had been working behind the scenes. He'd helped triangulate the transmitters that were broadcasting control information to the helpless citizens. He'd helped SWAT break down the front doors of the revitalized industrial districts. THe automated steel mills had been reprogrammed to make ammunition and replacement parts for the red robots. Chicago would have been the heart of a conquest from within.  
  
They were still finding nasty surprises left for them, and the military was on high alert. Five soldiers had gone missing around US Steel plant #4. And now he was pulling up to it, military veichles around them; along with mechs in their fesh urban-camo paint. None of them as big as the vanguard however.  
  
As much as he had doubts, he'd feel better when Hawker was stomping around the city again.  
  
"Allright Agent Akes, let's see what's been eating our the troops."  
  
\----  
  
He didn't sleep that night, and needed a long recharged before he'd finished the paperwork. At least Akes could keep up with him, and she looked quite cute in pyjamas.   
  
Her expression wasn't so friendly however. "I think there's no alternative. We need more of a presence in the city until this gets cleaned up."  
  
He gave her his best blue-eyed blank look. "Another batellion? More boots?"  
  
She shook her head, her long banks moving over her eyelashes. "Bigger boots. If we found that kind of trouble taking shape, there is worse we don't know about."  
  
"He's going to have kittens."  
  
She chuckled. "I want the recording, make sure you're there when he finds out."  
  
\----  
  
"So what exactly is this?" asked Chris, reaching for the device as Hawker held it up out of his on-crutches pilot's reach. Dexterous mechanical fingers rotated the unusually-shaped object. It had a USB port for charging. THe exterior was brushed nickle and carbon fiber black. The top had a single metallic nozzle, almost like a thick straw.  
  
"It's an early Christmas present." spoke Colburn. Her hair is done up immaculately, and Chris couldn't spot so much as a touch of grease on her silver gown. Her husband stood at her side, smiling, holding her elbow with his. "Technically it's a Slug, one of those devices you apply to an AI to slow it down. But I've modified it. It's more of a.." she gave Hawker a wink as memories of the parasitic intelligence devourers came back to him. "..flask."  
  
Chris could see the resemblance right away. "Ma'am, are you trying to get Captain hawker loaded?" came his surprised and worried question.  _Drunk_  Hawker??  
  
THe resplendent Chief Engineer laughed! "I'm trying to give the captain a means to relax. This slug should emulate the effects of alcohol by slowing down key parts of the DF2's primary data loop. And he can sober up in a few moments." THe look on Celn's face though. That was truly adorable. He looked so polished in the suit, his hair slicked back, leaving on a crutch onder his left arm. He'd gotten down to using just one.  
  
Hawker found the drivers for the slug easily enough. He turned the flask-like slug over again in his hands; bottom was engraved. 'To Captain Hawker, from Kole and Colburn. Bottom's up!' His suit hung on him, and he cut the kind of figure Mr Universe wishes he could. Shoulders a yard wide, narrow hips, shining black boots that set solidly on the floor. You couldn't help but notice.  
  
One of the many waiters, who had been politely waiting for a lull in the conversation spoke up: "Pardon me. Mr and Mrs Colburn, may I escort you to your table?"  
  
Fred Colburn smiled warmly at the pilot and the robot before escorting his wife through the main doors to the dining room. "You were right, they make an adorable couple.."

 

* * *

 

 

"We're going  _where_ , ma'am?"  
  
It was a balmy 2 degrees Farenheit out in the airfield of Elmendorf Air Force Base, and snow flurries filled the gray air as techs and engineers dressed in bright orange went about their work moving equipment around, taxiing aircraft, and all around trying to keep warm.  
  
It was much more pleasant inside hangar bay 4, even with the doors open. There was enough machinery and electronics in there emitting heat, and that wasn't even counting the warmth radiating from the reactor core pack of the HLX-9 Vanguard Lancer that stood nearby.  
  
The Lancer - Lance - was, like all production models of the Vanguard program, a heavily modified HLX-9 unit. The mech stood at 14'9", and had a rather sleek look about him; aerodynamic, almost. Lance had been used for the early air drops and night raids during the war, leading thermally-shielded battalions of paratroopers in some of the harder, more decisive battles at Yakutsk and Bratsk. After 4 years of that, he had been brought back stateside to be the resident mech at Elmendorf AFB in the event of a counter-attack. Which, of course, never happened because the US won the war. Oo-rah.  
  
"You're going to Chicago for a little while," the colonel said, gesturing at the pair with her datapad.  
  
"A little family reunion," said the mech, voice deep and... was that bitterness?  
  
His pilot looked up at him. He was painted in the dull grays of a fighter aircraft and covered in black and white numbering, letters, and blurbs of operational information as though the DF2 inside was just another dumb machine. In black across his left shoulder was a four-digit number: 8041. He was the eighth Vanguard out of nine ever built, fitted with hardware pack #4, and built in factory #1, in Cincinnati. Every Vanguard unit had a number that ended with 1 - there was no other factory ever put into operation.  
  
Second lieutenant Virginia Soto cocked a brow. Lance, she knew, had little interest in meeting most of the other veteran DF2s after all these years, and had never pressed him for the why. But she had theories.  
  
"What, afraid he'll kick your ass in the sim room?" she goaded playfully, flashing a smile up at the enormous machine.  
  
Lance folded his arms across the front of his cockpit chest and shifted his feet, averting a pair of red eyes. "I doubt the Hawker has the  _discipline_."  
  
"If Hawker's performance during the invasion is anything to go by, I'm sure Captain Davidson did an impeccable job before he left this earth," the colonel offered. She'd known the man personally when he was stationed here - he was the best Rockweaver pilot she'd ever seen.   
  
"It's still a civilian outfit," the mech grunted.  
  
Soto narrowed her eyes at him and squared her strong shoulders. "Then you'd best be prepared to lead by  _example_ , sergeant Lance."  
  
The mech straightened suddenly and dropped his arms with a rush of whirring hydraulics. "Yes, ma'am. My apologies, ma'am."  
  
The colonel nodded in approval. "I want you two on your best behavior down there. Their staff will take good care of you, but remember that they are  _not_  military. They do things a little differently than we do, and it will take some time to adjust." She stepped much closer to Soto and dropped her voice. "General Fowler wants you keep an eye on Hawker," she said carefully. "He wants daily reports from the both of you on how things are running down there. There's a... special interest in that AI."  
  
Soto scowled a little. "May I ask what that interest is, ma'am?"  
  
“No, because  _I_  don’t even know.”  
  
Soto nodded.  
  
"Do not use their network to upload these logs. Lance is to take care of that personally."  
  
"Yes ma'am."  
  
The colonel slapped a hand on the pilot's shoulder, stepping away again. "Good. Now be ready to ship out in two days. 0500 Monday morning. The rest of your info is already available on your server, I suggest you read it."  
  
"We won't let you down, ma'am."  
  
\--  
  
Hawker, Chris, Mr. and Mrs. Kole, and Mr. and Mrs. Colburn were gathered off to the side of the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel, trying to avoid the cameras as immaculately dressed waitstaff wandered about the gathering crowds of guests with offerings of hors-d’oeuvres. Hawker was in the middle of noticing the white gloves when Colburn handed him a small gift bag stuffed with tissue paper, at which he cocked a brow and proceeded to politely pick apart.  
  
A present, for him..?  
  
It was a... well, he wasn’t sure  _what_  it was, only that it reminded him of something.  
  
_"I'm trying to give the captain a means to relax. This slug should emulate the effects of alcohol by slowing down key parts of the DF2's primary data loop. And he can sober up in a few moments."_  
  
He was going to make a joke about malware, but an usher took the opportunity to interrupt, and Hawker was left squeezing his pilot’s shoulder while turning the slug over under his golden gaze as Gideon and Barbara looked on, sipping cocktails.  
  
“Well go on, try it,” the sergeant said, looking quite sharp in his own suit.  
  
Hawker looked at Chris for a brief moment, saw the twinkle in the boy’s eye, and shrugged. Mouthpiece to mouth, he sucked in a bellowsful of air, and felt a cool smoke waft across the Ares’ tongue and down its gullet. A few moments later and he felt a warm creep up his back struts and... behind his  _optics?_  
  
“This is gonna be interesting,” he chuckled, smiling just a hair wider than usual. The Koles exchanged looks and winked. “Thank you sir. You’re spoiling me with all these damn gifts, you know.” The chrome on his cufflinks glinted in the light, as if on cue.  
  
“Just don’t forget what Agent Akes said,” Kole murmured, cocking a brow. He was specifically referring to the long list of things he was not at liberty to talk about - especially, evidently, the fact that the Sixes in Wolf Lake had possessed cloaking devices... which the public was  _not_  to know.  
  
Hawker smirked and took another drag of his ‘vape’. The numbing sensation was growing on him, though he’d make sure to use his new toy conservatively. “No need to worry, Sarge. Our heroism makes for a great story, saucy details or not.” He turned his attention back to Chris, noticing a reporter surveying the crowd, his eyes just about on them. “Well, I can give ‘em  _one_  at least.”   
  
He grabbed Chris’ chin, bending forward to give him a powerful kiss just in time for the reporter to catch it on camera.  
  
“Now c’mon, officer. Let’s get out of here before somebody starts asking questions.”  
  
The reporter, mouth agape, followed them with his eyes as they disappeared into the ballroom. “Well I’ll be damned,” he whispered to himself.  
  
\--  
  
It was 2 in the morning, and Hawker was sitting on the couch in the pilot’s lounge, slug in one hand and Chris’ thigh in his other. Jacket was slung over the back of the sofa, and his dress shirt was unbuttoned in the most ridiculously suggestive way.  _Die Hard_  was playing on the TV. The pilots who  _didn’t_  have the morning shift were gathered around, nursing beers, Jaegerbombs, rum-and-cokes. Nobody was paying attention to the movie, of course, and the space was filled with drunken laughter.  
  
“...and when he asked if I slept in the pilot’s quarters, I said -” Hawker interrupted himself to laugh. “I said, ‘depending on whether or not Chris gets on his knees and begs’!”  
  
Leslie Wen was on his other side. The mech was sitting with his knees  _very_  far apart, and his leg was contacting hers quite a bit. She laughed, and Hawker couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or his joke, but she was quite pink.  
  
He found himself wondering how pink she was  _elsewhere_.  
  
“You two really are something,” Wen said, still smiling brightly.   
  
Hawker glanced back to his boy, many drinks in as well, then locked eyes on Wen. “We really are, aren’t we?”

 

* * *

 

 

The couch sagged under the large load of the Ares chassis, but that just meant Chris and Wen were slid toward him. As Bruce Willis worked his way through the skyscraper, Wen was inching her way toward the metallic and suited Captain.  
  
As the dramatic scene with the rooftop shootout versus the helicopter concluded, Wen moved to lean up against the soft white undershirt that covered the thickly muscled metal torso. She is warmer, a good three degrees more then Chris. Softer all over, her fingers found his hand. Small, just like Chris's. Softer, gentler in how she'd touch along the haptic pads. She had a smile that he had never seen her wear before. It went with how open her eyes are, how she studied every movement of his synthetic face.  
  
Twenty minutes later, her soft form is firmly up against his side. Chris's soft snoring indicated just what his stuff and sloshed pilot planned to do until morning. Wen..  
  
..her hand on his shoulder, her warm breasts against his thick bicep. "Come to my room in five minutes." Her voice a whisper that was difficult for him to filter against the explosion on screen. "Keep the suit on."   
And then she'd gotten up..  
  
The next 300 seconds passed with agonizing length.  
  
\--------------  
  
The party had been a rousing success, which made his chances of staying Mayor in the next election as solid as the marble floor of his study. Daily the 3rd touched the glass of whiskey, watching as the single ice cube bobbed in the amber liquid. Firefighters, the Police, the upper levels of the military that were stationed in town, all had seemed to have a good time. The mech and it's pilot had put on a good show for the press. Then, with the reporters out of the building, the elite could enjoy private conversations with the others at their station. He'd noted that the Colonel and the machine had easily established a rapport that lasted until the uniformed man had left.  
  
WHat could have been a disaster had been spun into an excellent position for himself. No one said that Chicago had been unprepared for an invasion. No one was calling into question his recent increases in the budget now, not with public safety being an issue. Money would flow, he'd have another 2 terms for sure, and he could keep the citizens safer as well. He polished off the glass and looked over the articles going out about the party.  
  
No mentions of any scandles, just well dressed humans and robots rubbing elbows. A Christmas miracle.  
  
\-------------  
  
"I can't believe they'd ship us out on a holiday. I don't mean the week of, I mean on Christmas itself!" Engineering Specialist Urkan grumbled. The man had lost both his hands on the feild years ago. Able to swap out everything from the elbow down meant he is one of the best to get to Lance's hard-to-reach components. "I was gonna do stuff!"  
  
The bulky man counting crates, checking their contents shared the sentiment. "I know. My husband is furious about the whole situation. He doesn't understand why they need anyone besides a pilot if the army is already in town. I tried to explain that we're responsible for everything that goes into Lance but.." he shrugged. "..It comes with enjoying large ordinance."   
  
Urkan sighed, taking a long drink from the thermos full of coffee. "It's you, me, my junior engineer, Soto... and Lance of course. He's excited to deploy. Did you see how eager he was to help load up the cargo plane?"  
  
Ashlan rubbed at where the warm hat he wore met his brow. "Did you read why we're deploying?" Of course, the man who like big guns and spreadsheets would have read every bit of paperwork.  
  
"No. And I don't care. I wanted to get hammed on eggnog and plug my stumps into a PS12 and rock some Metal Gear."  
  
"One of the factories was curing out self-assembling bots. Plant 4. Eight dead troopers. Some Detective and an FBI agent got it shut down. They're worried about what they  _haven't_  found."  
  
Urkan paused, his right hand rotated and retracted from the data port, making itself look like a normal human hand, if matte black. He rubbed his chin. "Holy shit. Like, real action on US soil? Damn. No wonder Lance looks like he had a caffeine enema."  
  
\---  
  
Pilot Soto sat in her office, having gotten the last of her possessions boxed up. She wondered about this assignment. Not the part about protecting the city; -that- she knew they'd handle. It was the other parts.  
  
Evaluating the DF2 from the 9801 and the rookie pilot.   
  
She had known Davidson. She'd been fresh out of training and he was the star. He still had the the fastest times in a Rockweaver for the training course. And it'd been snowing that night when he'd done it! She'd gotten close to the time, but the man had found an extra ten seconds somewhere that she had never been able to locate. And now, she had a Vanguard of her own. Kind of. Lance belonged to the Air Force. Already, they were looking for her replacement even through it'd be 5 years before her contract was up. Capable pilots just didn't pop out of nowhere.  
  
The 9801. Hawker. The black ops unit. When he'd been found, people wondered if there was a tenth vanguard somewhere; the CHicago plant had produced more then enough parts. Elmendorf had enough spares to remake Lance over, aside from the reactor.  
  
Davidson had died inside the 9801. The report she'd skimmed over mentioned that Hawker remembered him passing. She'd read it again, and fully on the flight.  
  
Celn was the other problem. THey were going to have him in Lance. She didn't want anyone else in Lance unless it was her replacement. You had a bond with the AI. You shared a mind. This would be like swapping spouses! And she is supposed to use a sim-chair for Hawker; as the 9801 is currently in a few thousand pieces.  
  
Which is why they were flying out, after all. Just in the event that someone might be getting ideas about Chicago still.  
  
"Fuck it." Virginia Soto announced to the empty room before heading down to the hanger. She wanted to see what Lance thought about the situation and compare notes. And prepare him for a civilian.  
  
Celn didn't have military training. He had a nicely locked up set of files and little more on the record then some juvenile delinquency. She'd seen his scores. He wasn't fit to be running something like a Vanguard in combat but, he had. She strongly suspected that the real reason for this extra investigation was to better identify 'natural' neurospace jockeys.  
  
Or maybe someone just wanted to see big robots duke it out. Either way, she knew that Lance would the civian hotshot and the mech out of action if need be. Nothing is better then proper training!

 

* * *

 

 

There wasn't hardly anyone awake or sober enough to notice when Hawker rose from the couch and slipped down the hall,  _away_  from Chris' quarters. He'd planted a kiss on his pilot's head, murmuring in his ear that  _daddy has some business to take care of_. The kid had done a damned fantastic job that evening, schmoozing and acting the socialite part for all of Chicago's 'beautiful people'. And he'd looked damn good in that suit. Hawker had spent a good portion of his night imagining Chris on his knees while wearing it.  
  
But this was a peculiar development.  
  
Until Chris Celn had come along, he had... done a good job of staying at arm's length from everyone, avoiding getting roped into their personal lives, or giving any damns about what they did on their own time. He'd remained the harsh and distant taskmaster for a number of reasons, and this was one of them.  
  
But his pilot changed everything. The Ares changed everything. A year ago he wouldn't have ever dared to flirt with anybody in the Vanguard chassis, let alone  _fuck_  them. Then again... a year ago he wouldn't have ever dared to ask for a stipend, or to spend his off hours befriending his crew, or taking a human to a  _steak house for a date_.  
  
He'd always liked Leslie Wen; that bright, soft-spoken, easily flustered and easily entertained little first responder. He liked her hands, the way her fingers glided across the screens of the datapads. He liked her eyes, so full of warmth and curiosity.  
  
_And need, apparently._  
  
Hawker had arrived at her door a few seconds late, pushing it open slowly. "Knock knock," he rumbled. Her room was... quintessentially  _her_  he noticed right off the bat. Photos of family were taped to the wall above her desk. On a shelf were a few Hello Kitty figurines, a 1:10 scale model of her Hatchet, and other knick-knacks. So - the girl was sentimental, huh?  
  
Wen was sitting on her bed in a pair of pajama shorts and camisole, fiddling nervously with a tablet. Hawker could feel that her heart rate and skin temperature was through the roof, but the pheromones hung thickly in the air. He remained near the door, interested to see what other moves she was willing to make.  
  
"I can't get my, um, Youtube app to open," she said, chewing on her lip and holding it out to him. "Do you think you could figure it out?"  
  
He crossed the floor and took it from her, his hand absolutely  _enormous_  as it swallowed up the small device. The mech bit back a grin as he poked at the icon, which opened up right away, but pretended to mess around with it more for effect. "This isn't like the operating system on your Hatchet, you know," he said a little teasingly. "I'm not exactly at liberty to hack Apple's software." Hawker sat down next to her, bed creaking heavily as he did so. He leaned her way a little, and her shoulder brushed against his thick arm. "But you might like to know that it's working now," he said, voice low.

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker is too big to get through the door without ducking. <He has to duck to get into your door, Wen!> she thought to herself. The machine is every single bit of tall, dark and handsome. It, HE shut the too-small door behind himself and stood there. Confident. Bulging all over, easily shaming Becker, those dress pants weren't even tight and WOW.  
  
How did Chris..  
  
Hawker moved slightly, servors whirring quietly.  
  
..he's here for ME.  
  
Leslie Wen required two breaths to calm her rapid heartbeat enough to speak. The words sounded so silly coming from her lips. But Hawker didn't seem to mind. He approached and took the tablet, his fingertips caressing her hand. Warm, not cold steel.  
  
She suddenly recalled how in her personal time, she'd never imagined how she'd gotten Hawker to be with her. It always just  _happened_! But now she had invited him in, and he is still reserved and professional. Making her bed creak. The bed. They were going to have to stay off it, otherwise she'd get the same treatment Chris had and.. she wasn't ready for that! God, what would people say if they knew? A large hand caressed the small of her back.  
  
She kneeled across those metallic through, perversely clad in thin fabric. What was Hawker trying to pretend he is? A gentleman? THat though made Wen smile. No, Hawker is many things; but he did not have civility.  
  
She still is shorter then the mech, her warm breasts pressing up to his pectorals. Soft hands, soft like the rest of her, slid along the skin of hawkers face, asking his head to tilt slightly with gentle pressure. Closing her eyes, Wen pressed her lips to the machine's. Her lipstick long washed off, but the vague scent of roses is still there, as is their plushness against sytheticskin. He breath is fresh and clean, minty...   
  
she'd been preparing for the Captain.

 

* * *

 

 

She had moved into his lap, straddling his massive thighs. She was smaller and lighter than Chris, her body... feline, almost. Smooth. Soft.  _Curved_.  
  
One of his gigantic hands rested just above her tailbone, silicone haptic pads on flesh. It seemed like the sensible place to put it.  
  
Wen wasn't saying anything, and that, coupled with her other heightened vitals, told him volumes. She wanted him - and bad, apparently. Her hips, crotch brushing  _so fucking close_  against the stiffening Magnus, radiated heat. Breathing heavily, he could feel her nipples against him. Those were warm and soft too. Her eyes fluttered up from his hard chest to his yellow gaze, expectant, before closing them and nervously pressing her lips to his.  
  
There was alcohol on her breath, the fact of which made him smile against her as he realized she wouldn't have had the courage to do this sober.  
  
_How **adorable**_.  
  
She broke away, giving him the sort of look that he would never get sick of.   
  
"I'm not sure you know what you're getting into," he said in a low voice, letting his hand wander up her spine, and letting the other one palm at her ass through her thin fabric. Hawker noticed that she wasn't wearing underwear. He rumbled in satisfaction and tightened his grip around her, pressing her breasts to his chest, and her pussy... to the hot bulge in his dress slacks. He chuckled when she gasped, bucking up into her a little and whispering into her ear. "You're going to feel good, Wen."

 

* * *

 

 

Curves.   
  
Wen had them, she is made of them! The curve of her smile, the way her nipples pushes up against her cotton camisole, how her hips pushes out against those soft shorts, the way her supple rear filled out his palm.  
  
Chris, for all of his smallness, is mostly edges and lines.   
  
As those words hit hit ear, Wen felt a tightness fill her chest as a heated bloom began in between her legs. She wanted that voice to whisper dirty, belligerent vulgarities in her ear as she got filled with mechanical precision. Her left hand came up, pushing her hair back behind her ear.  
  
Then she crossed her arms, grabbing the bottom of her top and lifting...   
  
Hawker's internal sensors mapped the geometry of how the shirt unwrapped and left little Leslie Wen bare from the bellybutton up.   
  
She turned pink at the way he  _studied_  her. Her breasts are full B's, they cast shadows on her smooth stomach, the nipples prominantly pered int he cool air of the station. But she is radiating heat now, and her hands found his. Hands twice the size of her own are bought up, permission to touch, to stimulate..  
  
..to  _excite!_  
  
How often had the AI wanted to push past the bounds of social order? He'd been instructed how little contact with humans is appropriate. And now, here.. he whole body is on-limits.  
  
She'd began to push into the warm swell of the magnus. Hawker could feel her softness, it rubbed on the hardware enticingly. Slipping along the surface.   
  
"Please." came her rushed voice, "Ever sense you got this chassis I.. I wanted.." A tremor rocked her, her head rolling and exposing her neck to him. He could see the uneven line where her blushing stopped.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Ever since you got this chassis I... I wanted..."_  
  
"You wanted to know what it would feel like to finally fuck your boss," he said for her, denta nibbling dangerous along her jugular. "You wanted to know what it would fee like to take a 15-foot machine crammed into this body. His strength, his power, his  _lust_..."  
  
The hand on her ass slipped under the hem of her shorts, following the cleft between her cheeks and feeling with his haptic pads how hot she was.  
  
_Wet_ , he thought. She was hot and she was wet, literally. Thick finger slid between her lips, brushed along her tight opening before colliding with that firm little nub. She stiffened at the contact, but he stayed away from the bundle of nerve endings, moving back to her aching pussy hole.  
  
"I'd like to fuck you against the wall if you'll let me," he rumbled. The Magnus strained painfully against the fabric of his pants, and he sensed that her grinding would feel a helluva lot better if he could feel her hot pussy sliding against his shaft.

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker had large fingers. Wen fould feel those obscenely powerful digits parting her vulnerable folds and getting slick.  
  
Her whole body shook as the Ares casually spoke about what it is going to do. What HE will do. It's the 15 foot tall monster, now half sized, ready to make her forget her own name.  
  
Each knuckle slid into her with ease, she normally wasn't like this. She had two different bottles of libe for her silicon toys, but being this close to Hawker she is just..  
  
..drenched!  
  
Her hands are busy as well, slipping the heavy belt through it's loops, helping it past the buckle. That dick though, it is thicker than any of her toys, even the.. well, the toy  _formally_  known as Mr Big.  
  
"Yes!" came her aroused exclamation, certainly loud enough that it might have been heard over the movie int he main room. Her tongue slipped over her lips. "I would enjoy that very much Captain Hawker. Please?"  
  
Her hands are far too soft for a pilot's, she must wear gloves. THose hands are stroking over the upper parts of the Magnus now, squeezing and milking the heavy shaft. Of course, she's sitting on part of it as well, just how big did it get?  
  
There had been whispers of course, but no one except Chris had seen it at full mast.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"I would enjoy that very much Captain Hawker. Please?"_  
  
He couldn't help the wicked grin that spread across his metallic face. Hawker suspected that girls were a bit different, part of that owing to having more holes, but Wen had a certain way about her that he could imagine himself having quite bit of fun with. That is, if Kole didn't shut down his lecherous antics.  
  
The mech wanted to tell her how big of a cock he had in his other chassis, how much he would love to watch her tiny body glide along its length and suckle at the massive head, but it was still his classified burden to bear. The Magnus, however, would more than suffice.  
  
He gently pushed her off of him and stood - near enough to her to feel her skin radiating warmth - in order to finish what she'd started. In short order his pants came off, leaving that tight pair of boxers that didn't hide a damn thing. Wen's eyes were on him as he slowly, confidently pulled the waistband down just below the base of that 14-inch shaft, standing firmly at attention and pointed, as it were, at her face.  
  
Hawker took the opportunity to bend down and kiss her on her open, gawking mouth as a kind of reassurance. He had a reputation, and while it was probably more accurate than not, he would be different here, now, for her. The girl's body language was asking for kindness.  
  
In a few moments, he had her on her back on the bed, crouched above as he tugged down the thin fabric of he pajama shorts to reveal a neatly manicured little mons. Peeking out from under the delicate flesh was her clit, swollen and hard in its own way, and aching for touch. He kissed her again as he dipped a single knuckle into her dripping hole.  
  
"Well damn," he murmured. "I had no idea how badly you wanted me this whole time, little girl. It must've been difficult, trying to satisfy yourself with toys when the real thing was so close." He added another finger, stretching her just that much tighter around him and pushed her camisole upwards, revealing those delicious breasts. Her nipples were firm as well. "I can't wait to see how gorgeous you look with my cock up in that pretty little pussy of yours."  
  
Did he want to hurt her? Admittedly, a little. Just enough to really see the whites of her eyes for a flash of an instant. For the most part, though, he was going to keep this short and sweet - and if Leslie Wen wanted more, she knew where to find him.   
  
And Chris? The boy had spoken fondly of the analog pilot on several occasions, sometimes with not a little flirtatious interest. If this ended well, Hawker realized that a threesome may be a possibility. But on the off chance that he disapproved of what was happening here, disapproved of his master sleeping with whomever he damn well pleased, then that would be  _his_  problem to deal with. Chris was his pilot and his boyfriend,  _not_  his keeper, the mech decided. Besides - the kid seemed to be willingly signing more and more of his rights away every time they fucked. Captain Hawker had control. And that's exactly how he liked it.  
  
His cock jumped at the thought and he carefully added a third Ares-sized finger. Wen whimpered.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

**FUCK!**  thought Leslie as he wide-eyes feasted on the sight of the mechanical tool.

She knew Hawker is big but that.. that's a cannon! It's huge! It's got to be twice the size of her normal toys, easily!

How Chris took it, or even fit it in his mouth was just..

Hawker watched as a new wave of redness and tightening of muscle passed through the small pilot as he exposed himself. 

..she'd just have to figure that out. And then he is on her, carefully unwrapping her clothes as if she were a gift for him. Had Hawker ever been with anyone? DId he even know how..

"..muh!" she moaned

..how to..

her lips became an tight line and "nnnfff!" escaped them.

..he knew what he is doing! Those fat fingers opened and plied her softness apart, stretching out he slick tunnel. Those inner muscles there struggled, but there is simply no give to the mechanical digits. Her body opened further, the smells and sounds of a needy Wen began to surround the bed.

Her eyes went from the astounding endowment (and the twins below! Just what kind of production did Hawker possess?) up to that face. He had the kind of smirk that pushed all of her 'bad boy' buttons. He knew he was a peak physical specimina, knew she wanted him.. and Wen wondered how bad she might have to work for more in the future.

At the third finger she winced as a whimper that echoed her discomfort, and her hands quickly went to his wrist. She didn't have the strength to stop him, but mercifully she could pull back. "Captain, I'm not a black hole." Under her guidance, she helped to move that large hand in and out with just two fingers. Nudging, pressing, and stimulating her clit indirectly with the motion as she smiled up at him. She kissed his upper arm, free hand caressing the powerful bicep as a happy quake had her hanging on for support. "There's a mirror, over there. I'd love to watch when you.."

She had a full-length mirror mounted on the wall, near the corner of her room. Even from here, it reflected the imposing sight of the arouse robot as he towered over her vulernable form. "..when you make me yours."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"There's a mirror, over there. I'd love to watch when you... when you make me yours."_  
  
A mirror, hm?  
  
Hawker's mouth parted into a toothy smile. Softened - he didn't want her to see him as the predator he was.  
  
"Please, enjoy the view," he lilted. "I've got my sensors to give me a good enough view right now." The mech had removed a finger at her previous comment, working her slowly, steadily. His fingers curled upward against that wonderful little spot behind her public bone, and he felt the immediate response in her heartrate. And in her voice.  
  
Hawker shushed her, covering her mouth with his again, letting her moan into his mouth. "Be quiet for me," he whispered, finger-fucking her harder. "Good girl."  
  
She liked the kissing, it seemed, so the mech obliged. He parted their mouths and slid his tongue into her mouth, nibbled at her plump lip. Hand palmed her breast, kneading at the soft skin, running his thumb across her nipple and feeling it pucker further. A few minutes later, and she was up in the air.  
  
"Legs around my waist," he instructed, feeling the swell of her ass brush against his cockhead. Hawker supported her with a hand under each thigh as he brought them to a stretch of wall in view of the mirror. God, she looked even tinier like this; her slim, curving torso pressed to his, her hips to his waist. Her back hit the wall, and he had her pinned with the powerful mass of his bulk.   
  
"I'm not sure you'll be able to take me," Hawker murmured into her ear - part threat, part tease, and part fact. "So just relax, little girl, and we'll see how far we can get." His hardon strained against the wall, beginning to weep a little pre.  
  
_Fuck, what I'd give to be able to just plow into her..._

 

* * *

 

 

The incredible warmth is overwhelming, and Leslie could barely think! Hawker has fingers bigger then most guys' dicks!   
  
THe way the metallic articulated joints felt sliding in her, their unyeilding size just spreading and stimulating her to the point she might explode. Her happy cries are silenced by his mouth - big enough to cover her mouth and nose if he wanted- and she wouldn't have been able to resist at all.  
  
Fuck yes, this definitely is a good idea.  
  
When he lifted her up, all of her clothing is left behind on the bed.   
  
The sight in the mirror though: its intensely perverse! THe massive masculine figure, broad-shouldered and hung; easily holding the slim and curved petite feminine figure. His dick is bigger than your forearm girl!  
  
She crossed her heel over her ankle, thighs and calves around his middle. Not his hips, his waist! He could holder her up with one hand easily, and she draped her arms on his shoulders.  
  
The way her small body looked against his, the way her nude body pressed up to his metal frame. A machine for war and destruction.  
  
What he is about to do to her nethers had her moaning needy whimpers.

 

* * *

 

 He could sense a few things from her - pheromones, the smell of her fluids, the fine sheen of sweat gathering along the nape of her neck, her heart beating hard and fast. Delicious.  
  
Hawker glanced in the mirror with her as he tilted his hips and lowered her down. His thousands of sensors felt her slick folds, the obscenity of his enormous head sliding and probing around that wet heat. She whimpered, sucked in a breath when he found her entrance, and pressed firm against it. He groaned at the pressure, at  _finally_  getting to stick his dick into someone other than Chris - and not just anybody, but one of his favorite people at 42. The next few seconds were spent pushing slowly, working her open, until finally, he was in.  
  
"Fuck," he growled as Wen gasped and gasped  _loud_. A smile. "You're a tight little girl, aren't you?"  
  
He pushed in just a few inches. He'd have to use even shallower strokes with her than he did with Chris, from what he understood of female anatomy, but already his sheer girth was doing wonderful things to her. Just by being there he was putting pressure on all the right places.  
  
"Let's see how many times I can get you to come for me," he said, sensing that she was close already. He withdrew his four inches slowly, then plunged back in. To the little human's credit, the things she was doing with her pelvic floor felt like nothing else he'd experienced; squeezing him and filling the edges of his machine vision with warm static.

 

* * *

 

Wen could feel the sensation building up, the waves of the oncoming tide that would be her own pleasure. Selfishly adjusting herself, there is little more to do as Captain Hawker held her in place. Her toned legs hung around the mech's slim waist with her calves and thighs on the mechanised hips as the moved under her. With her forehead against his shoulder as she watched in the mirror, Wen got right up to the edge.  
  
Tiny little Wen. Broad Hawker.   
  
His fat shaft pushed her open to ways she'd never through a dick ever could. He'd pull out, just enough that the flare of the glans stretched her to her widest, then all the way back down. Mechanical legs pumping, the fine behind of the Ares flexing. How long had he watched her, through about having her just like this? Helpless, against a wall, unable to do anything but--  
  
Leslie emitted a deep moan, her teeth finding some of the rubber of Hawker's shoulder joint and biting down hard. Her petite frame shook and she compressed around him. Ripples of natural muscles, teasing and coaxing the Mangus to new sensations that Chris had yet to learn. SHe is built for this, her body showed it's appreciation.  
  
Uncharastically heavy sounds from the little pilot. Her hands wrapped around, barely able to each the middle of those shoulder blades as she hung on. There is no respite, no cessation of that perfectly angled thrusting. He KEPT pushing in, kept putting pressure on all of her at once simply by thrusting; and Wen knew through the warm feelings flowing through her pussy that she'd be bow-legged tomorrow. And that thought--  
  
As a sound wave crashed through her, that voice spoke his name. "H-HAWker!" Her eyes found his as pinkness flushed her, her soft breasts up against his metallic pectorals.  
  
Bow-legged? She might not be able to walk!

 

* * *

 

 

Fuck, fuck...  _fuck_  she felt good!  
  
Hawker sped up as she came, riding the wave of her pleasure until she went rigid against him. The sensation of teeth on his shoulder went straight to his dick, but he forced himself to sit still as she rode out her aftershocks around him, panting, moaning, muscles jerking. He could  _feel_  her flushed skin as much as he could see it. To his machine senses, Wen was like a flame pinned to the wall. Heh. Too bad it wasn't a case of impalement.  
  
The mech had an agenda right now though - an agenda that surprised even him, but he was determined to make a good impression... and leave her coming back for more. He gave her only a few seconds of respite, still feeling the tightness of her hot pussy around the end of his cock, as he reached between her legs and began to rub in firm, hard circles around her clit. Another moment and he was bucking into her again. He was going to wring another orgasm out of that little body of hers tonight, and there wasn't anything that was going to stop him.  
  
"Come for me again," he grunted into her hair, moving his fingers faster through her slick. "C'mon little girl, I wanna see you -" Hawker caught himself before he said the word 'cry'. "Let go," he finished. Better. That was better. Didn't want to give Wen the wrong impression now, did he?  
  
She was wound tight around him, stiff, shaking, sweating - he hadn't given her the rest that her body wanted. But this was going to be oh-so-much better...

 

* * *

 

 

Her lips moved, the words "Oh God!" uttered over and over as she panted and held on through her natural high. They are plump now, red naturally, flashing her white teeth as he exposed her primal self. She squeezed him with her fierce strength, fingers scrabbling over his body, trying to leave a mark on the machine.   
  
If she were by herself, she'd just sprawl out on her bed and enjoy the aftershocks. But Hawker, her machine stud, wasn't  **done**  yet.  
  
And he didn't wait either. Oh no. The twitch in her legs hadn't even stopped before HE began again. More aggressive too, no doubt savoring the way he'd gotten her to pop...  
  
_"C'mon little girl, I wanna see you - let go."_  
  
Wen's heart melted as it beat firm and fast. She gave that handsome face a smile and she leaned back. Her butt in his hand as he stimulated her with tireless fingers. She is safe. She isn't going to fall, he's not going to try to stuff those fat inches inside of her all at once. Hawker could make her happy.   
  
Hands on his shoulders, her back arching, her breasts moving as she bounced -and is bounced- on the Magnus. "I, Yes.. ugh.. I'm.. nghff.." The flush in her cheeks kept up, the perked nipplese slid over his chest. She wouldn't be long. And she knew that she'd be cumming when he asked.

 

* * *

 

 

"Mmh, grab your tits for me," he said, picking up the pace.   
  
Her expression made his balls twitch. The way she moved, the way she felt against him, around him...! He was getting close too, but he fought it. His air cycling roared to life as he routed the pleasure elsewhere to keep it from building beyond control.   
  
Wen did. She pinched her nipples, pushed her breasts together, and Hawker muttered a curse at not having a third hand. Ah well, her hips, pried wide open against him, her juice dripping down his throbbing shaft, and her strong thighs around his waist was delicious enough.  
  
_"I, Yes.. ugh.. I'm.. nghff.."_  
  
"Come for me," Hawker rumbled, repositioning the hand under her ass so that he could press his finger against her other hole, feel it tremble and pucker. To his surprise, he was able to slide in up to his first knuckle and feel his own thick cock in her through the thin wall of tissue separating the two intensely fuckable holes...  
  
" _Now._ "

 

* * *

 

 

Leslie felt dirty and she liked it!  
  
He loosed her up so easily. He could ask her to yelp like a loon and she'd do it! He might have been able to get her to eat a hotdog with ketchup.  
  
Two handfuls pressed together, advertising where else he could slide that enormous, thick and wonderful dick of his. She kissed them while smiling up to him, really letting go as he just plowed her without flagging. The look on his face though, he is close too. SHe would-  
  
An obscenely thick digit press into a place that normally got little attention. It curiously pressed forward and back, sliding within her and giving her plenty to consider as that large face leered into her surprised expression. SHe didn't even get a chance to comment! It felt so good just to let Hawker take control and obey, to let him enjoy what she had to give.  
  
This time, he got to watch her face. Her eyes closed, the muscles in her neck drew taut, and she seemed to be trying to smile and frown at the same time. A heavy creek came from her lips, along with plenty of similar and new sensations. SHe is twisting, rolling her pelvis, trying to help get him off. Such a good Wen, sharing her pleasure and surrendering to him.  
  
"Yes Captain.." she groaned, squeezing her nipples and leaving pink marks in the soft white skin of her flushed globes. "Fill me up Hawker!'

 

* * *

 

 

_"Fill me up, Hawker!"_  
  
She was good at this. A little too good! The war machine felt his own climax approaching - he groaned and grunted, thrusting and rubbing wildly.  **No.**  His cum she would have to come back for, asking for it. Begging. He imagined it: Leslie Wen, knocking at his door late at night, biting her lip, back arched, her little hand palming his massive member through the front of his pants as soon as he opens up the door, the need in her eyes --  
  
  
With a fierce growl, Hawker suddenly hoisted her up, her legs now around his neck as he finished her off with his mouth. Sucking, lapping, tongue pushing deep inside of her once, twice, before he wrapped his lips around that hot, throbbing, hypersensitive little nub and devoured the young woman whole.  
  
She tasted sweet, musky from her first orgasm, tangy with want. She practically oozed into his mouth, like a dam had burst. God, Hawker wanted to get her under the tongue of the 9081. He wanted to watch her writhe and hear her scream.  
  
He wrapped a hand around the base of his enormous hardon, pumping just enough to keep him teetering so deliciously along that edge.

 

* * *

 

 Air rushed past and Wen found her shoulders and head up against the ceiling. But she didn't have time to think about her new position too much. Hawker is on her, ravenous, that large tongue in her well-stretched walls. She clung to his neck, her boobs on his head as she curled around him and hung on. Happy squeaks and balled up fists thumping against his head let the mech know he'd done it again.  
  
This time there is heavy breathing, moans, and she had nothing to push up against. Her hands eventually grasped the back of his head and she GROUND herself up against those lips.  
  
Huffing, crying, giggling, Leslie Wen's world is full of color and joy. Her flavors painted all over the Ares's tongue and she selfishly enjoyed the pleasure He brought her.  
  
Those warm thighs shook in rapid quivers, the muscles tensing and flexing. Her smooth stomach showed her abdominals, they rolled as the waves of orgasmic delight made her unable to even do anything but hang on for the ride.  
  
"OhshitHawkerDontStopIllFuckingkillyouIFyoudoOhShitYESyoumetalStudgivemeAllyouGotI.." Wen growled, unable to continue the constant joy he is busily forcing through her! 

  

* * *

 

 He covered her from mons to perineum, not letting up for an instant as she was overcome.  
  
This girl was deceptively strong... and deceptively lewd! Trembling, jerking, panting, groaning out a stream of delectable filth as her little fists beat against the hard metal of his head. She'd have to shoot him with a  _mortar_  to make a dent.  
  
More of that sweet nectar came oozing out as her muscles clenched, clenched, clenched, and he slurped her up. After a few moments, he took his hand off himself, kissed the inside of her thighs, and lowered her down into his thick arms. The girl was practically a dead weight, so spent. She was aglow, though, and quite something to look at: glazed eyes, skin flushed with tingling heat, lips plump and nipples pert as she heaved exhausted breaths. Girl looked like a goddamn angel.  
  
Hawker's yellow eyes flashed and he smirked at his handiwork as he brought her back to the bed and laid her down. He kissed her on the head and when she saw that he was still rock hard, the mech just chuckled. 

 

* * *

 

 Wen felt wonderful. As she is gently laid out on her own bed, there are colors and sparks in her vision. Her legs are jelly and an air rushing sound filled her ears. Or is that just her breathing? She couldn't remember the last time..  
  
Hawker loomed over her, his oversized arousal throbbed realistically. It dripped onto her. He hadn't finished? God, he had the biggest dick and the way he blotted out the light on the ceiling as he towered over her.  
  
She felt just a little guilty that he'd made her feel like  _this_  and yet he didn't get off. She wanted to get up and help him, to return the favor.   
  
After all, she'd been on the other end of this before. But unlike those times Hawker didn't look disappointed at all!  
  
Weakly, her arms raises, she tried to grab towards him, but another aftershock washed over her and all she could do is moan through it. Her soft form trembled, breasts shaking, spasms running through her; spent.

 

* * *

 

 He watched, grinning, as she reached out toward his full mast, business end still trained on her. Wen's finger brushed against the tip, and the cybernetic equivalent to a shiver fanned out through his haptic net. She made the cutest little noise, so tired, before settling down into her sheets, shamelessly sprawled. Her thighs glistened with fluid.  
  
Hawker stroked at his head, coaxing a little precum onto his fingers, before bringing his hand to her face and pushing the thick digits past her red, swollen lips. He felt her tongue on him, tasting him, and then he withdrew. "Remember that taste for next time," the mech said, turning his attention briefly to what lay beyond the door. He was relieved to sense no one left awake. With that he started gathering his clothes - and yep, was not planning on putting a damn thing on for the walk to the bathroom. Nor did he have any intention of turning off the Magnus, either.  
  
"If anyone gives you shit for this," he said with some warmth, coming back in to brush his fingers along her chin. "Tell them to take it up with me first. Got it?"

 

* * *

 

 

Leslie Wen floated on the cloud that is her bed. A warm bubbling sensation filled her the way Hawker had. She throbbed within, his girth having stretched her out in all the best ways.  
  
The guilt of not bringing the robot to climax is offset by her annoyance at Chris for not telling anyone else just how GOOD Hawker is in bed! She lifted her smooth chin upwards, tongue lazily licking around his fingers as he toyed with her.  
  
When he came back, she hadn't mooved, and a soft queef erupted as he touched her face, and she didn't even look embarrassed for once. Her hand took his and she squeezed lightly.  
  
"Got it. THank you Hawker. I'm going to remember this for a long, long time."  
  
Her eyes lidded and she nuzzled into his palm, kissing lazily as she squirmed. Right in the wet spot and she didn't care a bit. She'd do laundry tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

 

_"Got it. Thank you Hawker. I'm going to remember this for a long, long time."_  
  
He gave her one last kiss on the mouth before heading for the door.  
  
"Don't wait too long for part two," he said with a wink, and disappeared.  
  
-  
  
Jesus Chris he was so fucking ready to come! Hawker closed the door to the communal bathroom, running the shower and stepping into the water before it was even warm. Temperature didn't matter to him, he just needed to get clean. And get  _off_.  
  
He wrapped one hand around his enormous shaft while the other hand cupped his balls, and he quickly got to work. It didn't take long for that addictive deliciousness to creep up his neck, around his hips, and for that heat to build. Hawker switched between stroking from base to tip to focusing on the head and back again. He imagined Chris and Wen each taking a bulbous ball into their mouth, cheek to cheek, looking so small against him and waiting for his command.  
  
The water spray against his throbbing cockhead is what pushed him over the edge, and with a fierce grunt he unloaded in the shower stall, dick jerking in his hand as glob after glob of hot cum was milked from his balls. He enjoyed his own tingling machine afterglow for only a moment before cleaning up and heading back out. It was almost 4am.  
  
"C'mon kid, off to bed," he crooned quietly a minute later as he lifted Chris up from the couch and brought him to the hilarious sight of the still-broken bedframe. Hawker laid his boy down, threw a blanket over him, and took one last look at the pilot he was so proud of before closing the door and heading down to his gantry in the motor pool for a recharge.

As he walked away it occurred to him that he ought to have felt bad - by most human standards this was infidelity. But Leslie Wen was too cute, her body too touchable, and his libido too hungry to have turned it down. Chris would probably find out eventually, he figured. And if he didn't like it... that's what submission was _for_ , right?

Right.


	25. The Lancer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the outsiders coming in to show how things are done.

Christmas Eve:  
  
Chris stood at Hawker's side, looking only slightly hung over. His fingers gripped the coffee cup, his blue uniform looking a little tight on his thin frame. The Hawker(TM) workout program is bearing fruit! The two of them are in Kole's office, along with Sergent Kole. The Colonel representing the local army forces is on the video chat. His voice echoes the same sort of hangover Chris has, perhaps at bit more of the same ache.  
  
"That is correct Sergeant Kole. The Defense Secretary agrees with the reports of the FBI and your detectives. Vanguard 8, Lance, is being deployed to Chicago until 9 is back in action. We have no doubts about Hawker's abilities, but if there's another problem it is no secret that he isn't in his normal body."  
  
"I understand Colonel." came the smooth voice of the head of precinct 42. "It's the stationing of Lance here that I have to question. Hawker's Chassis is strewn across the gantry. We don't have a second one to hold Lance."  
  
"A reasonable concern. The Air Force has assured me that 8041 will just need a garage, which you are best equipped to handle. You also are best suited to house the munitions and have him deploy from if needed. Should Lance be significant damaged, the Air Force will repair him. And they've been volunteered to aid in getting Hawker repaired."  
  
Chris spoke up in a natural lull as the conversation flowed. "Sir, I glanced over these mission orders on the way up. Am I correct in that Hawker and myself are to cross-train with Lance and pilot Soto?"

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker had to figure out how to fit in the sergeant's office because this was a conversation to be held behind closed doors. Everyone was nursing a cuppa, puffy-faced, groggy. Everybody except for Hawker, who couldn't experience a hangover.  
  
_"A reasonable concern. The Air Force has assured me that 8041 will just need a garage, which you are best equipped to handle. You also are best suited to house the munitions and have him deploy from if needed. Should Lance be significant damaged, the Air Force will repair him. And they've been volunteered to aid in getting Hawker repaired."  
  
"Sir, I glanced over these mission orders on the way up. Am I correct in that Hawker and myself are to cross-train with Lance and pilot Soto?"_  
  
Hawker's face had been stern, but now he was frowning. The moment he learned that another Vanguard would coming to 42, even for just the time being, the mech had found himself in a bitter mood. He couldn't put his finger on it, but sensed that it was... territorial behavior. He'd gone over the same documents when they came in that morning, reading line by line how the Lancer and this Soto pilot of his would be waltzing in and taking over what was essentially  _his goddamn job_.  
  
And they'd be taking  _his pilot_ , too.  
  
Hawker suddenly, acutely, achingingly missed being fifteen feet tall. For some reason only then, he felt, would he get the respect he was due as captain of 42's mech unit. And if he heard one fucking comment about this being an inferior civilian outfit --  
  
" _Captain._  Are you listening?"  
  
Hawker snapped his head up to meet Kole's hard look for a moment before the sergeant repeated himself. "I said, I want a training schedule on my server for the both of you by the end of the day."  
  
The both...? Ah, yes. Kole was leaving it up to  _him_  to get Chris situated in some other mech's pilot seat. Just fucking  _perfect_. "Of course, sir."  
  
Kole raised a silvery eyebrow. "You don't sound so sure, Hawker."  
  
The mech glanced at the colonel on the vid screen, then down at Chris. The kid met his gaze with tired eyes, but there was still that same sharpness there that told him his pilot knew more about what the mech was thinking than he'd prefer to let on... and he was enjoying it. Hawker's yellow optics flashed with the barest hint of a glare before he turned back to the sergeant.   
  
"On the contrary sir," he rumbled with an extra helping of gravel in that voice of his. "I'm just... my  _systems_  are really beginning to feel the effects of being away from my old chassis for so long. I'll need time adjust, is all. Not used to watching from the  _sidelines_  so to speak, sir."  
  
Kole's eyes gave a twinkle - a twinkle! - and he cracked a smile. "You're not gonna be the biggest thing in the room anymore," he chuckled. He eyed how close Hawker's antennae were to the ceiling of his office before shaking his head. "Well, in the  _motor pool_  at least." The colonel laughed. Hawker vented hot air with a strained rush, folded his arms stiffly. This was going to be hell. "I want the schedule, Nine," Kole continued, serious again. "And leave your goddamn ego out of it, you hear? Celn's your pilot, it's up to  _you_  to help him stay in peak form while we put your body back together."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
\--  
  
  
It was 8 in the morning on Christmas eve, and James McConnell was standing outside of some slick cafe downtown - one of those places that served coffee made from  _real_  Arabica, a crop that the nuclear winter of the Siberian War made quick work of around the globe. The beverages, he saw when he looked in the window, started at $9.  
  
He'd taken up smoking again since the attack and the few days he spent recovering at Saint Joseph's afterward. Not one of his proudest habits, but things were getting stressful at the Tribune. He hadn't gotten a decent scoop in a little too long... but it was his bastard editor's fault anyway, sending everyone else to dig into the good shit. But he was onto something now, he was sure of it. The tip came the night of the mayor's dinner, and he'd be damned if he didn't follow it.  
  
"Mr. McConnell?"  
  
The man turned around and locked eyes with one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen in his life. She was east Asian; maybe Korean or Taiwanese, and had long, silky black hair to frame a face that even God would have been jealous of. She wore a black, fur-trimmed Prada coat, and a kelly green pencil skirt peeked out from underneath. Her yellow kid gloves matched her yellow pumps, something that struck him as audacious to attempt in such weather. But he liked audacious. James stuck out his hand when he realized he was staring, and she took it elegantly.  
  
"At your service," he said with a little smile, blowing the smoke away from her. "Miss, uh...?"  
  
"Noh," she said, smiling knowingly. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice... and on Christmas Eve, no less."  
  
"Hey, well, it's all part of the job," James chuckled.  
  
The woman laughed a little too before gesturing to the door. "Shall we?"  
  
"Yes, lets. Ladies first."

 

* * *

 

 

Chis felt both amused and uncomfortable. On one hand, having a chuckle at Hawker's expense always produced a funny result. On the other, he did genuinely understand the bruised ego of the large robot. He wasn't going to be the biggest bull in the pen for a time. Of course, how much fun he hand might get taken out of his hide later. Hmmm.  
  
"I suppose the only question I have left is why Christmas Day?" inquired Kole once the chuckles died down.  
  
"Less air traffic and it was the quickest the Air Force said they'd be able to deliver Lance." the colonel examined his notes, checking that he'd hit all of his talking points. "Have a good holiday and remember to hydrate."  
  
"Happy Holidays Colonel."  
  
The call ended with a soft electronic chirp.  
  
The internal fans of the Ares had spun up to audible levels, and the heat output is noticeable.   
  
Kole turned his gaze to the pilot resting on of the two chairs across from his desk. The young man is quietly scrolling through the parameters of what'd been sent to them. His fingers dancing over the tablet, no sign of the tremors that'd been there when he'd first woken up. Whatever happened with him and the machine, he knew the two of them want little more then to get back on duty.  
  
"Chris." spoke Kole, his voice as warm as the air coming out of Hawker. The rookie's gaze snapped up and he smiled. "This is your first time working with the military. I know Hawker was, but this is going to be different. Just remember that you take orders from the Captain and Myself. The military can make requests, but they don't have actually authority over you."  
  
The features of the youth pull into a frown, and Kole can see the confusion working about in his mind. "Sir, you're saying I need to, uh.."  
  
"Consider the consequences of your actions, just like you do whenever you wear that uniform." Kole instructed. "Now get to work. You too Hawker, I don't need a sauna for an office."  
  
\-----------  
  
Chris sat on the 9081's left foot, his back on the shin. The cold metal is utterly quiet, not like how Hawker normally was. You could always feel the movement of internal mechanisms. But the vanguard chassis is still in pieces, the torso lay open, wires spilling outware and the pilot chair missing. Both arms are removed and hanging on the gantry, the helmet's visor is down; at least sparing him the sight of the dead eyes.  
  
On the Ares, Hawker's yellow eyes gleamed with internal debate. He paced with deliberate steps, firmly placing one boot before the other. Celn enjoyed how even in a jock, the magnus mage a fucking sexy bulge in his bot's BUDs. The pad in his hands vibrated as another update to the cross training is uploaded. Taking his eyes off the sight of the boss, Chris got to work reviewing and adding in his suggestions.  
  
The motor pool is filled with activity. Across from the bay holding Hawker's gantry lay a similar sided hole, normally used for equipment storage. Cargo containers stacked three high and two deep filled it's cavernous depths. Hawker's office had been the first suggested place to park Lance. That'd been dashed, as it also held more then a few of 42's important systems, along with being the mech's "private" space. That's why there is a hurried push to find space for Lance.  
  
During the day, Chris had been full of questions:  
"Did you know him? Do you remember him?" those were expected. But what perhaps showed just how much the pilot knew about the DF2 where the ones he'd ask in a whisper.   
  
"Boss, are you okay with this? What we have is special. I'm not about to crush on Lance just because He's stomping about in a Vanguard Chassis."  
  
\-----  
  
Becker through, had no problem earning holiday pay. He had trouble keeping the smile off his face! As he ran the crane, he unstacked the unwieldy containers with ease and walked them over to where the other techs were guiding him. Baked into the the orders with the Air Force mech were some he danced when they came to him. ALL of Hawker's pilots were to undergo cross training, that meant himself! He'd finally get a chance to prove that he is worthy of the job, and that the problem lay on Hawker's end.

 

* * *

 

 

 _ **WEEK 1 OBJECTIVE: Familiarity with the HLX-9 Vanguard Lancer unit's tactical, sensory, and kinetic capabilities.**  
DOCUMENTATION TO REVIEW: targeting-sys_v3.nu7, comm-sys_v7.nu7, comm-interrupt_v62.nu7, error-index_v13.nu7  
RECOMMENDED TRAINING: Crash room, firing range, neurospace connect/disconnect re-training.  
SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN FOR CELN, C. FOLLOWS..._  
  
It didn't bother him at first, the sight of the #9081 chassis. The armor plating pierced like Swiss cheese, the arm in pieces, the limbs askew, wires everywhere. Now, though, it angered him. Hawker stopped pacing to take a cutting glance at it.   
  
_That was me once._  
  
It was the 'him' that everyone knew, the 'him' that everyone - well,  _almost_  everyone - loved. It was the 'him' that got to be the hero. The 'him' that got to nestle a little human body deep inside and protect it from everything. Or at least try to. Memories of Chris the night of the attack flooded in like a SWAT team on a raid; his pilot's strategic, merciful gift of numbness before being skewered; then Becker, not understanding that the small cockpit of an HLX-9 couldn't fit both a pilot  _and_  their ego.   
  
Hawker remembered the long days he spent in medical afterwards, the sense of anger and helplessness. No doubt these ragtag remnants of the Siberian Front would attack again. Hundreds of cheap mechs, the millions in cannon fodder had been a good distraction. Kole and Colburn had been hush-hush about their talks with the DoD and CIA, especially concerning the cloaking technology the Six had employed. Even if it was only good at deflecting radar and thermal scans, it was good enough to be scared of. You could plan a ground assault around that.  
  
_**WEEK 2 OBJECTIVE: Signal jamming protocol and training, EM weapon training...**_  
  
He continued pacing, trying to distract himself as other programs took over writing up the schedule. He tried to lose himself in the memory of fucking Chris, or Wen, but sex was far away right now. A red flag - this was really bothering him, wasn't it? Hawker felt culpable for something, weak; he needed to prove himself to somebody. Remind everyone, himself included, why he deserved to be called captain.  
  
Before lunch, Chris caught him staring daggers at Becker, at the space being made for the new mech. A small hand touched his arm, and the kid asked him a question. Had some reassuring things to say.  
  
_"What we have is special."_  
  
Hawker stood unmoving for a few more seconds before putting that same arm around a pair of shoulders that felt much sturdier now than they did when they first met. And the cane was gone too. Chris was about as ready to jump into the chair again as he could be.  
  
He tried humor. "If you did get boner in the cockpit, at least I couldn't say you had bad taste." A pause as he vented air, then proceeded to surprise himself at how easily the next part came out. "You know, kiddo, life was easier when I was bigger than everyone."  _Life was easier when I didn't give a damn._  
  
Chris' reaction to the situation was expected. He  _liked_  piloting. He had what it takes to get behind the wheel of a Vanguard without having a mental breakdown, and he was excited to get back into the action. Hawker couldn't blame him. If he could fit the Ares into the Lancer's cockpit, he probably would have been eager to try too.  
  
Hm. Actually, the more he thought about it... the more it was giving him ideas. He'd have to talk to Colburn.  
  
"In the meantime," Hawker said, forcing a small smile at his pilot, "We need to give these bastards a damn good first impression."  
  
\--  
  
The small motorcade arrived from the airport without incident. It was Christmas morning, and the streets of Chicago, having gotten a fresh blanket of glistening powder that night, were all but deserted. Soto sat in the back of a black SUV, texting her mech in the c-can ahead of them as they pulled up to the doors of the elevator.  
  
_We need to give these cops a damn good first impression, OK?_  she sent him.  
  
_I want our time here to be productive just as much as you do, ma'am. You have the peace offering, right?_  
  
Soto patted the gift bag at her feet - a bottle of Bulleit that Lance had thought to give to Celn.  _Right here, slick. Oh, and speaking of, don't be surprised if they give you their own nicknames._ She chuckled and set her phone down as the doors closed behind them and the lift rumbled its way down.  
  
\--  
  
Chris woke up that morning to one of those big bouquets of chocolate-covered fruit on his nightstand. It arrived last night by courier, and Hawker had a hell of a time trying to find a refrigerator that would fit it. Fortunately, the lunch room on the 4th floor did the trick once he shoved everything out of the way. He owed Tsung now too: he paid her the cash and she ordered the gift for him. The whole ordeal made Hawker realize that he needed a credit card if he wanted to be able to buy damn near anything in this town.   
  
All in all, it wasn't going to be the most easygoing holiday that 42 has ever had, but at least no one had committed arson or driven a truck full of liquid nitrogen into an embassy yet. The beat cops sure had their hands full as usual, though. But that wasn't exactly the mech team's concern today.  
  
Hawker had wanted to see the look on his boy's face when he woke up, but he had to settle for a kiss on the cheek and a short text:  _Merry Xmas kiddo. I'll see you downstairs._  Colburn had wanted him down there early.  
  
\--  
  
"Merry Christmas, Big Nine. Santa bring you anything good?" the chief joked when he stepped out of the elevator.  
  
"Lump of coal so far," he grumbled, taking his place beside the gantry again.  
  
"The day's still young. We're having a little get-together down here tonight to celebrate, by the way. Kole threw us a bone for being stuck here today."  
  
"Lovely."  
  
"Chris is going to do fine, if that's what you're worried about."  
  
"I've no doubt about that, ma'am," the mech replied with a huff, grabbing a datapad and getting to work.  _If only that was the problem._  
  
\--  
  
An hour later and everyone was gathered to welcome the new team. Hawker had gone over the Lancer's specs, familiarized himself with every inch of his chassis. Now was the first time to see another HLX-9 in person.  
  
Soto jumped out of the SUV, dressed in her air force uniform with a bag under her arm, and waited for her mech to right himself in the trailer and step out. Hawker remembered the sound of whirring hydraulics and thrumming power cores. In a few moments, the Vanguard unit was standing at his full height: 14'11", 5.4 tons. Hawker crossed his arms and stood at his tallest, locking optics with the Lancer. His were green, not yellow.  
  
"Merry Christmas everyone," he announced with a voice that possessed a lighter pitch than Hawker remembers the Vanguard chassis being able to produce. Was voice a component of the DF2 more than the physical characteristics of the vocalizer, then? He'd have to ask Colburn later, realizing that he'd never given it thought. "I am an HLX-9 Vanugard unit, Lancer-class, chassis number 8041. My rank is technical sergeant. You may call me Lance." He saluted and gestured to the young woman standing beside him. "This is my pilot, second lieutenant Virginia Soto."  
  
Soto introduced them a little bit more, explaining their task over the next few months, thanking the men and women of 42 for their hospitality. Then she went over to Celn to shake his hand, and Hawker's brow plates pressed together.  
  
"Lance has something to give to you, officer," she said. "Partly as a Christmas gift, partly to make sure your relationship gets off on the right foot."  
  
What the hell was this? She outranked her machine, sure, but to speak over him like that? And to fail to acknowledge that Hawker outranked  _Chris_? He cocked a brow and frowned as he watched Soto hand the bag over.  
  
"From mech to pilot," Lance said, flashing a winning smile.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance felt warm in his reactor. Deployments always had him eager, ready for action. Of course he'd never seen much in the way of combat. As the eight vanguard, the war was over by the time he'd been cleared for action. He'd put his feet on Russian soil, but all he'd done is look menacing around the base. He'd been called in for riots, of course. He'd done more than his fair share of work with the national guard as well, as it turns out a giant can accomplish a great deal in an emergency. And he'd felt satisfaction when rescuing victims of natural disasters.  
  
The possibility combat, the chance to use his weaponry in anger; rather then as a deterrent? It titillated his processors.  
  
The time in the c-can, both onboard the cargo plane and on the road are very long indeed.  
  
\--  
  
Soto examined the documentation provided to her. Unlike Lance, she is not looking forward to being plugged into Hawker. At least the first rounds would be via a chair in the tech's department. She flipped back to the videos. Some of the footage of the 9081 fighting had been leaked out. Snow and ice on the ground, the brawny vanguard dueling with multiple enemies; she watched as Hawker threw an opponent bodily into a concrete barrier. There is another bit of film, the damaged machine as it returned to 42, obviously injured as it leaved out fluids onto the ground. Then there are photos, the ones from the mayoral party just a this week are brought up. Hawker in an Ares, a quite capable combat drone, wearing a suit with his pilot.  
  
Soto considered that for a time, examining the adjusted itinerary that is coming in from Hawker. Captain Hawker. Chris Celn is never listed by a title? She scrolled up to the top of the document with a few flicks of a finger. Chris Celn. Hmm. Interesting, did he not have a rank? Below Chris is another name, listed as a probational secondary pilot, Trooper Corey Becker. No photograph. She highlighted the name and dumped it into Google. Her eyes widened as she found him posing as Mr December in a beefcake calendar. "Well, hel-o Mr Becker. Aren't you a pretty boy." she spoke with a smile. She safed that image, and went back to work. With a sigh she approved the first three weeks as they'd been presented. Looking further out would be foolish at this point.   
  
At least there'd be some eye candy on this assignment. Maybe the Russians would get up to something, and she'd get to show off.  
  
\--  
  
Corey Becker felt fantastic! He is wearing his favorite under armour shirt beneath his uniform, loving how it accentuated his already impressive physique. After all, he is Mr December again for next year's charity calendar. He'd spend that last week on a diet, trying to cut down to perfect weight for the photos. And of course, he'd been included on the mission plan for Lance's visit. He'd finally get to prove that he beloned as a pilot, and that the problem was Hawker. Lance had his own wikipedia page. All the vanguards did. Lance had done some speaking, some recruitment videos for the Air Force. He had a charismatic and pleasant personality; or at least that was the public image. Corey felt pumped AF as Lance made an entrance.  
  
\--  
  
Engineering Specialist Urkan is on his fifth cup of coffee and had no intent of stopping. His metallic hands sat in warm gloves. Screw anyone who said you didn't need gloves, the cold would creep into the stumps on your arms if you didn't have 'em on! Thankfully the trip had been nice and smooth. Lance emerged from the c-can with no issues, and it looked like they might be just fine. He'd looked at Chicago on their flight in, spotting 42 wasn't hard at all. The eight blocks around the station were paved flat, and the precinct stood out like a concrete fortress. Cars pared in some of the lots, temporary trailers sat in others. Personally, the Urakn is looking forward to getting a proper pizza for once.  
  
The sight of the motor pool, that is a hell of a thing. Well below ground, the air swam with the scents of oil and grease and exhaust. And there'd be TWO vanguards! Once the 9081 is operation, he wanted photos. He just hoped the information he'd been passed by Colburn was wrong about Hawker's condition. It seemed like a ton of work. He glanced over at the end of the large vaulted room. He could see the two large alcoves, and there was an impressive amount of equipment stack aside one. 'Looks like a long job, and oh googy I'm volunteered.' he muttered.  
  
\--  
  
Lance couldn't help but smile. The motor pool is a massive place, the open area is bigger the any of the Elmendorf hangers. Virginia's watch told him her vitals are well within normal, so he could examine the young man standing beside an Ares-3 mech. Hmmmm. Technically, Chris would be his fourth legitimate pilot. Not counting persons at the factory and the like, who were not vanguard pilots; just testers.  
  
Hawker through, he is different. Lance considered opening an electronic channel, but then decided against it. Hawker obvious is not pleased at the current size situation, judging by how he is busy puffing himself up. Lance had plenty of experience with being the biggest, and today is nothing new in that department. Lance would have no trouble reminding the DF2 of 9081 who is the new big dog.  
  
\--  
  
Chris walked with a slight limp, obviously favoring his good leg. It hurt, but man it sure is nice to be off the crutches. Lance the lancer. Huh. He gave off a friendly vibe then Hawker, much more approachable. Still plenty large and plenty deadly though. The other thing, is how he  _knew_  Hawker is seething right now. Hawker is venting again, not that you could hear it over Lance's mechanicals at work. Chris took in a deep breath, he'd need to be far more diplomatic then he was. If he didn't want an even angrier Hawker then normal, he'd need to make sure that he never looked like the one stepping on the 9081's 15 foot ego.  
  
He took the velvet bag with a smile, "Thank you second lieutenant Soto. I.." he paused, moving the black bag back and forth ".. it gurgles?" He looked up to Lance and winked, slipping the bottle out. "OH! Wow, thank you. You're very kind." The eyes of the whole room are on him, and he wished he could just disappear. He never liked being the center of attention. Putting the bottle back in the bag, he turned and gestured to the seven-foot tall Ares on his side. "This is Captain Hawker, the DF2 of the 9081. Would you like to say a few words, sir?" quietly dropping the hint to the military types that they were snubbing his bot.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"This is Captain Hawker, the DF2 of the 9081. Would you like to say a few words, sir?"_  
  
Chris' gesture was... unexpected. Hawker hid the look of pleasant surprise well as he dropped his arms to his sides and nodded curtly. "I would," he said gruffly. "Thank you, Mr. Celn." His scapulae vents shuttered closed - the mech contained his heat for now.  
  
"Lieutenant Soto, Eighty-forty-one, it's good to have you here. I'm sure you've been well acquainted with this town's and this station's reputation, so I'll spare you the gory details. Suffice to say, everyone you see here - and the lucky bastards you  _don't_  see here for that matter - are whip-sharp and tough as nails. We have some of the world's finest first responders here, and should any of those Siberians try anything again any time soon, then you'll be serving with some of the world's finest ass-kickers too." He held out his hand to Soto, who stared at it for a moment too long before taking it with her own strong, but still much smaller one. To which he gave a firm, level shake and looked her in the eye with a confident smirk to make sure she knew who was boss around here. "And don't get my pilot drunk tonight. He's got a lot of work in the morning."  
  
\--  
  
Becker seemed eager enough to give them the grand tour, so Hawker let them.  
  
"Wait, the captain has a 7th generation core?" the mech overheard from where he stood with Chris, tucked away in one of the alcoves outside of his old office door. He caught a glimpse of the Lancer -  _Lance_  - getting distracted anew by the dismantled Vanguard chassis, much to Becker's chagrin and much to Hawker's amusement. "One of the new loop-types," he exclaimed. Then, to Soto: "When we get back, I'd like to talk to the commander about upgrading mine..."  
  
"They should do alright," Hawker announced quietly, as though delivering a final assessment. He folded his arms and coldly studied the air force's Vanguard like he was a dog that would've followed Becker home. "Though the army-types don't have much field experience these days; I wouldn't be surprised if all they knew how to do was paperwork." A snort. "That Vanguard acts like he's being led around on a leash, though. He needs to get himself a spine and a pair of balls if he's gonna survive around here. What d'you think of 'em, kid?"  
  
\--  
  
Sarah Colburn was in her lab getting everything ready for the following week. The sergeant told her to head home at noon so she could at least enjoy a few runs of  _A Christmas Story_  before diving into the roast beast that evening. Her oldest was bringing a girl over for dinner, apparently - they must be getting serious. And her youngest was starting his first semester of pilot school after the new year. She was hoping to get more than just a few days off for the holidays, but the station was in no shape to let somebody take her place for more than 36 hours. The chief would have been more than happy to train a few assistants to take over for her at times like this, but with all the security clearance she needed just to work on the DF2? Fat chance.  
  
Soto knew a thing or two about machines apparnetly, but not enough. And most of her knowledge pertained to aircraft, not mechs. Ah well.  
  
She glanced at the schedule Hawker had submitted. The first two weeks would be easy enough: he'd play coach to Chris' VIP, watching from the box, and when he needed to jump in personally, they had the sim room to replicate most of what it would feel like to pilot the 9081. Cory Becker, though... he was gunning for a Vanguard for himself, wasn't he? He made it pretty obvious what he wanted, at any rate: Hawker, fanning him with palm leaves and feeding him grapes. He had a damn good chance of becoming Chris' backup, aside from being an inch too tall to fit in that cockpit. Colburn wanted to pull him aside to help him navigate Big Nine's personality, but he wasn't one to take advice. The man preferred learning the hard way.  
  
Colburn finished up her work and began to gather her things. She could taste the rum and eggnog already. She stood in the doorway, switching off the lights and glancing about the dark space for a moment as she thought. Both she and Kole would be gone for the next 24 hours, leaving one of the lieutenant officers in charge of the joint. First time this has happened in almost a year.  
  
She shook her head and laughed as she closed the door and headed for the elevator. "Let's hope nobody kills each other."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"And don't get my pilot drunk tonight. He's got a lot of work in the morning."_  
  
If she'd been told that the Ares-3 is being remotely operated by a human, she'd believed it. Captain Hawker presented himself quite well as an individual, more marine then machine. Himself. She let go of the hand, considering how she hadn't thought of Hawker as an it, but rather as a he. Interesting how this DF2 differed from Lance. However, there is an excellent distraction to Hawker's side, practically bouncing in his boots like an eager puppy.  
  
Virginia Soto knew today is going to be quite the merry Christmas! Right there, doing his best to suck up to her is one Corey Becker. He enjoyed quite a dazzling smile and a happy, jockish attitude that went along with his linebacker build. And lucky day, Becker is sucking up to her like a remora on a great white. She found herself half listening, scoping out that fine behind of the trooper as he pointed out parts of the motor pool to herself and Lance. There is a wonderful security to being in a reinforced concrete basement, and soon enough she found herself and Lance gazing at the parts of the infamous 9081.  
  
"Mr Becker, there is something that's a bit vague on the paperwork. I'm hoping you can clear it up for me?"  
  
Lance is crouching, large finger tapping at the front of the 9081's boot. Then he leaned back, looking down and touching the differently shaped toe of his own foot with an amusing curiosity.  
  
"Of course Ms Soto! I'm happy to help you can Lance with anything I can."  
  
"It's about Mr Celn's rank. Nearly everyone else's is listed in triplicate."  
  
There is a rush of air as Lance stood upward, crossing his arms and then touching his own chin. Above, his voice rumbled as he spoke aloud to himself "...remarkable improvements. I wonder how many were done here, versus this being the ninth chassis. I like the way the counterweight has been adjusted. I bet He can do a forward roll.."  
  
"The ru-rookie?" Becker questioned, catching himself. "He's a greenhorn. Hasn't had enough time on the force to be a full officer yet. He's a Cadet Trooper." Oh, Corey knew Chris's rank all right. Not that ANYONE would listen how it is absurd that someone who normally wouldn't be allowed out on a beat without an experienced partner is running the Vanguard.  
  
"Ah, that explains it then. It seems Lance has found something to amuse himself. Why don't you show me some of the station? I heard we had on-site accommodations?"  
  
Becker had a strut in his step all day long.  
  
\--  
  
_"That Vanguard acts like he's being led around on a leash, though."_  
  
Chris smiled, relaxing on a storage crate. "I think the military enjoys obedient machinery. And she outranks him too." he teased. "Honest assessment?"  
  
Hands behind his head, he swung his feet side to side, watching as Lance compared himself to the 9081. Had the8041 ever gotten time in front of a mirror? Things can be weird for giants.  
  
"Honestly? I think they're both capable and sure of themselves. ANd I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to seeing how Lance feels. What's his personality like, what's his cockpit like? I'm going to guess it'll be easier than our first time." he observed with a chuckle. "I'll be on my toes though."  
  
Slipping off the crate, he peered out the alcove. No one had direct line of sight at that moment. He embraced his Captain, resting his head against those metallic pectorals. "Don't worry, I'm not going to forget who's my boss." he whispered.  
  
\--  
  
Lancer 8041 brought himself back up onto his feet. No need to duck in here! The motor pool has been adjusted for someone his size, and it felt delightfully strange. Is this what his mechanic had been speaking about when he'd rambled on about 'civilian comforts?' Virginia and her police escort-- haha! That's a nice pun. Her police escort took her out on a tour. He casually reviewed Becker's profile for the fifth time that day. Hmmm. The trooper had the drive to be a pilot for sure, but his height and inherent ability scores might prove difficult.  
  
However, the current person of interest is busy speaking with the owner of the chassis he'd been busily inspecting. He turned his green gaze to the thick insulated cables that ran from the computing core, through a number of terminals, and into a pair of smaller gantries. Once is obviously made for the Ares, while the other held a smaller bipedal android. Did Hawker enjoy a multitude of bodies? That is definitely a 'civilian comfort!' Lance imagined himself in either of them, in a normal Air Force dress uniform.   
  
Of course, that would mean being small. He crossed his arm with a rumbling clunk, weight moving to his left leg. Supposedly, if all went well, Brass is going to have himself and the 9081 face off in a number of simulated combat situations. What Lance couldn't discern is the results. Soto is the superior pilot, and he is the better mech. Together they'd outperform the police. Hm. Perhaps it is the cross over, comparing the pasline when Soto and CHris swapped?   
  
Then, there was the -other- details. The items he had in a protected, on-board private server. Hardening his internal firewalls, he brought up those files, sme of which detailed Chris and the results of a paper published by Dr Bea Morris. The prospects of what'd been observed had been what'd really pushed him over the top for this assignment. SOmething about their interactions had created new mental growth in Hawker, the DF2. And whatever it was, the years of being with Davidson hadn't shown anything like it. And when a stripped down, backup of Hawker had gotten to be with CHris, the same kind of developments had occured. And thanks to himself and the other vanguards, they knew what a pilot-swap did to an AI. THis wasn't the same.  
  
And that kind of experiment made Lance's higher functions excited, he didn't have this kind of processing power just to stand around an airfield! So he'd suffer an eager pilot and an untested rookie for the chance to see what made the cadet tick. SPeaking of... technically, with no one demanding his time.. Chris and Hawker were close by...

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Honestly? I think they're both capable and sure of themselves. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to seeing how Lance feels. What's his personality like, what's his cockpit like? I'm going to guess it'll be easier than our first time."_  
  
Hawker rumbled faintly as he watched the scene before them, remembering. It seemed like so long ago already. The Hawker that had given the green-light to the compatibility tests was... bitter. Angry. Vulnerable. He had gone into those training sims, the "blind dates" as they called them, gunning to wreck every single one of those academy scabs. He'd brutally wasted half a dozen of them that morning, chewing them up and spitting them out. It's what he wanted more than finding a new pilot so soon, that was for sure. But Chris was special. His brain was perfect for neurospace linkup - the kid just needed to be trained.  
  
The Lancer was a good lookin' mech, Hawker couldn't lie. He was sleek;  _pretty_ , almost, though no doubt devastatingly effective in his own way. The documentation said he was designed for communications interference, to jam, mask, and even counterfeit signals. Which may or may not prove useful here: Hawker had guessed that the Ruskie's robots were operating with pre-programmed on-board commands without any intelligence at the helm, and therefore no live signals to trace. He'd been right. Even the pilots of the Sixes had been following radio silence protocols, perhaps even just communicating with hand signals.  
  
Hawker hoped that Lance knew sign language.  
  
_"Don't worry, I'm not going to forget who's my boss."_  
  
Chris's embrace was sudden and honest. The human's cheek was soft and warm against the haptic sensors of his chest, and when he looked down, he half-expected the kid to be the size of his forearm again. The mech let his hands come to rest along Chris' back and he held him close for a few moments. "You really like this hugging shit don't you?" he murmured with a breath of a chuckle. Then, a mechanical sigh and the side of his mouth twisted up. "Sorry. I just..." He bent his head forward for a soft, quick kiss. "I just cant wait to feel you in  _my_  cockpit again. Feel you in me again." Leave it to Big Nine to be able to make those words sound dominant. Still, he meant it.  _Pined_  for it, especially now. The mech glanced back to Lance and Soto, and he imagined watching her climb up the side of the 8041's leg and seat herself in the hollow of her machine's chest before the leaves of his hatch closed around her, enveloping her in some of the most cutting-edge military technology in the world. Enveloping her in the trust and loyalty of a machine.  
  
Just as Chris had felt temporarily disoriented at seeing the human world through Hawker's eyes, Hawker was sure he'd experience similar once he and Lance finally got to set foot in the crash room together.  
  
"Promise me one thing, kid," the mech said with a firm snort. "When you link with him, you do  _not_  let him onto how much of a kinky fuck you are." A wink. "Wouldn't want to scare him off."  
  
\--  
  
Later that evening, about 15 people from 42's mech unit were gathered around a half-dozen containers of Chinese takeout arranged on some fold-out tables in one of the cafeterias. There was a small plastic Christmas tree on a table beside the counter - white with red bulbs and blinking rainbow lights, the kitschiest thing Hawker had ever seen - and  _A Christmas Story_  was being projected onto the wall.  
  
_"Scut Farkus! What a rotten name! We were trapped. There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So help me, God! Yellow eyes!_  
  
Thule was only on his second beer, but he was already drunk. The 28-year old snorted, pointing at the Ares' head. "Yeah, and look who else has yellow eyes!" he laughed. Hawker cocked a brow as the technician's face turned beet red from laughing, catching his breath here and there just long enough to gasp the name 'Scut Farkus' a few times. The mech reached over, grabbed the half-empty can from his subordinate's hand, and flung it across the floor. Thule straightened up faster than Hawker was expecting.  
  
"You get to clean that up, now," he said casually. "And be glad I'm not making you scrub toilets all week." The man sulked away and he grinned sarcastically. "Merry Christmas, Thule."  
  
Soto, nursing her own red cup of spiked eggnog appeared beside him as they watched the guy sulk over to the bathroom to grab some paper towels. "You always that hard on them?" she asked, taking a sip.  
  
He was going to make a dick joke, but realized that it was a serious question. "If I softened up, no one would know what to do. Why, it would be mass hysteria; human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together..."  
  
The young woman smiled to herself. "You got the line wrong."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"That line's from  _Ghostbusters_ ," she said, continuing to watch Thule as he tried wiping up the spilled beer with his foot. It wasn't working so well. "It's 'human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria'."  
  
Hawker narrowed his eyes as he looked on as well. Her tone was cordial, but it was lacking... something.  
  
"You know, captain," she said, finally looking at him with a pair of sharp, penetrating eyes. "You're not as perfect as you like to think you are," Soto said with an enigmatic little smile. "I'm looking forward to seeing you and yours in action tomorrow." A moment later and she'd already disappeared, grabbing a plate of seconds from the table with Becker.  
  
The mech stood there, silent.  
  
This was going to be  _very_  interesting.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris pulled back from the seven foot Ares with a huge smile on his face. Hawker wasn't happy with the situation, but things were as good as they could be. "I promise. Cross my heart." His left hand did a x over the middle of his chest.  
  
His mind too went to that first day, of what'd happened in their brutal first encounter. "Soto doesn't strike me as the type to duck. She might not need to." He had to wonder, just what WOULD it be like for them. He'd seen what'd happened to Becker. Davidson had of course molded the DF2 to be a proper marine. After a long moment, he decided there really wasn't anything to do. "I suppose I should tell you the same. She might run off screaming." That made him grin.   
  
"I'll see you tonight."  
  
And with that Hawker was alone with his thoughts.  
  
Chris was planning on heading upstairs, but something caught his eye. THe Lancer is busy working with the two, make that three Air Force personnel unloading cargo into their temporary home. Cargo containers, each the half the length of a normal cargo trailer, and Lance is just picking them up with ease. They were unloading another of the trailers that'd come with their convoy. He casually walked up and found himself next to a man with a pair of robotic hands. They glistened black with an off sheen on the joins, reminded him of oil pooling under a car. "Uh, pardon me."  
  
Urkan turned slightly, and looked at the pilot six years his junior, his face a grimace and a vape stick hanging from his lips. Pulling it free, he exhaled twin streams from his nose before answering. "What is it?"  
  
Chris felt his Christmas cheer dampen slightly, but he put his best foot forward anyway. "If you'd like, we're having a little holiday party up in the pilot's lounge. Starting around eight. All four of you are welcome. I'd invite The Lancer but he'd never make it in the elevator."  
  
"If we get done in time." Lance swung a crate over their heads, his footfalls heavy enough to feel it in your spine. "Damn it, look, just stay outta the way kid. LANCE! Don't fucking DO that I don't care how good your grip is, I don't want any more new limbs!" Shouting more, Urkan stomped off after the mech.   
  
Leaving them to their fate, Chris's slight hobble had him soon well away from the chaos.  
  
\--  
  
Lancer 8041 stood in his temporary home for the next few months. Unlike the base, Precinct 42 is awash with signals, communications and interlocking AI systems. He'd started up conversations with them, getting the lay of the land, as it goes in cyberspace. There is an interesting food system, responsible for nearly every consumable except for the coffee. Apparently it didn't like coffee and preferred some kind of artificial blend of caffeine, taurine and licorice. Unsurprisingly, the beverage had minimal appeal. Then there was the medical staff, those he is far more familiar with. They were numerous medical droids, the ubiquitous doctors and nurses that had found their way across the US during the great war. They'd formed a gestalt mind, where they'd pool their hardware and mental functions, allowing them to operate at the level of the other systems despite being made up of 36 different platforms. There is a large station AI, which ran the building and operated everything from the elevators to the cell-block doors. It spent most of its time silent, far too busy speaking with the police force to chat with the other AI. The vehicles around him spoke with their lesser minds, lamenting the use of salt on the roads and their rusting brake calipers. Up above the drones on the rooftop hanger spent their days watching the weather reports and considering their loadouts.   
  
It is a microcosm of the city outside, and he is outside of the insular system. They acknowledged his presence, and politely answered inquiries. But they didn't  _talk_  to him. And outside of pleasantries, the 9081 hadn't bothered to speak with him. Lance had briefly considered pushing his way past the communication barriers but..  
..well, it wouldn't be a fair fight, would it? The real Hawker is across from him in pieces. That evening, as he loaded up into Mechwarrior online, he found himself contemplating the small drone next to Hawker. What would it be like? He decided he'd talk with Colburn about it, once they'd settled into a routine at the station.  
  
\--  
  
Soto wasn't exactly sure if it is always with way, or just the holidays, but the humans of precinct 42 are treating her well. The pilots were broken up into two large blocks of dorm rooms, each having its own central lounge. Apparently this one was the lounge of choice, as the other floor had the empty rooms where she and the other Air Force members had been offered residences. Becker hadn't run out of charm either, and she wondered how long it would be before she got to see him acting naturally. Perhaps she'd get to chat with the other lady pilots later. The'd just finished watching the nightmare before christmas, and the next one up is .. oh god, not the one about the BB gun!  
  
Chris had gotten Hawker to take out the crumpled up bed frame. They hadn't sourced something durable enough yet, so he'd just been supplied another cot with a teasing warning that they'd better put the mattress on the floor next time. He had a few more hours of downloads to finish by tomorrow, so he'd been appearing between transfers to get food and find another drink. He is scarfing down a plate of lukewarm turkey and potatoes when there is a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he found the stern yet smiling face of Virginia Soto. She beckoned him with a 'follow' me gesture.  
  
They stood in the doorway to Tsung's room, the asian pilot busily kicking ass in a game of Starcraft and ignoring anything that wasn't her AMPs.   
  
"So, I've been hearing rumors about you. And Hawker."  
  
"They're probably true. Also, what the hell is up with Lancer's comm system, I'm on chapter eight of forty-some?"  
  
"He's a complicated machine. So you stole Hawker out from under Corey then?" she teased, taking a sip of her eggnog.  
  
Chris grinned. "Yep. Plugged into Big 9 and danced off with him. Becker can't score 100% of the time." He realised he is holding a mixed beverage and decided it needed to all be in his belly.  
  
Soto watched as the young pilot put back the potent eggnog like it was water. "The stoic marine act is funny for an AI to take on. I'm going to have fun tomorrow."  
  
Urping into his elbow, Chris grinned wider. "I bet you will. Just, ya know, keep your cool. Any advice for getting along with Lance?"  
  
Soto saw Becker waving, he'd scored two seats on the good couch. "He's a model Air Force Sergeant. See you tomorrow."  
  
Later that evening, she began to wonder if that third red solo cup of the eggy brew had been worth it. Right as she'd decided that her bladder is winning over her desire to see Bill Murray in Scrooged, Chris emerged looking haggard. He navigated the late-night revelers and made it up to the Ares, who'd been chatting with Ferdinand and a small female analogue pilot. What is her name? Wen? Tugging on the giant's shoulder, they spoke briefly, and he held up a bottle of water. The mech dug into a pocket and produced an orange container, obviously the classic medicinal pill bottle. It deposited one pill into Chris's hand and watched him take it, before the kid stumbled off to his room.   
  
Hmmm.  
  
Cory gave her a firm squeeze as she move to get up. "I'm going to crash for the night trooper. See you soon."


	26. ART: Hawker designs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No story here, just some art I whipped up today in response to a comment! Truthfully I've been trying to nail down what Big Nine looks like for months, but nothing ever seemed quite right. Then this happened. Art is by yours truly, aka kisupure. (And yes, I take commissions.)


	27. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris and Lt. Soto trade mechs.

Chris look at the familiar walls of the test room. Hard to believe it'd just been a few months ago when he'd first been here. Felt like a lifetime ago. Soto is wearing the Air Force variant of the piloting suit. Skin tight, hiding nothing and Chris had to admit he is jealous of the defination in her shoulders. He'd be bigger eventually. He hoped! THe black suit clung to him like a neoprene diver's outfit, pressing the sensors all over his body. "How is everyone?"  
  
Colburn is nowhere to be seen, and Thule waved to Celn from where he is standing by the chair where Soto stood. "Morning Chris! We're still trying to get the Ares to play nice with the link-up. Might have to dump the DF2 back into the vanguard Chassis. Dunno how Hawker would feel about being in parts for this, but, ya know how it is."  
  
Urkan spoke up, pointing at the chair he is next to. Chris spotted the towels and the barf-buckets set out in anticipation. "Lance was able to connect easily. You've got an excellent test system here, I think you'd have to go to the academy to beat it." His praise had Thule smiling. "We're ready to begin when you are, Mr Celn."  
  
"Right." He put in his mouthguard, butt in the seat. Feet into the stirrups, arms on the rests, and his hands on the rubbery hand grips. He moved his eyes to look over to Urkan, head straight forward. "Put me in."  
  
Soto rolled he eyes. Really? No stretching, no deep breaths, no moments of meditation? What was this rookie trying to prove to her?  
  
Urkan's left hand is folded back and the dataprobe plugged directly into the chair. "I'll be monitoring and pull you out if you get into medical danger." The mechanics of the test-seat pushed the probe into the back of Chris's neck and he felt the tingle of mental connectivity. "Initiating in five, four, three, twwoooo..." time began to slow as Chris shut his eyelids, machines always think quicker then men, "..ooonnnneeee..."  
  
Chris's body jerked in the usual fashion, and the Air Force tech chuckled. "Was he like this last time?"  
  
Thule looked at his phone, reading the latest update from Colburn. "Feet first into the deep end? Yup."

 

* * *

 

 

Lance was hooked up to 42's servers via the sim room - Hawker had escorted him there personally, wanting to get a glimpse of the enormous space again for the first time in a while. Also to... kill a little time while Thule and one of Colburn's lab techs got the 9081's CPU back online. The Ares was having trouble serving as an interfacing proxy; deeply-written military firmware designed to be a safety measure to prevent the drone suit from being hijacked. It was looking like they would need authorization from the fucking Pentagon to bypass it, so Thule was suggesting that they just route Hawker's AI through the parted chassis.  
  
Even the most basic simulation required petabytes of memory to run, and he watched as Lance hooked himself up to the thick cables that lowered from the ceiling, interfacing directly with the building's systems. The HLX-9 could  _generate_  a life-like sim environment with his on-board tech, but he'd BSOD from trying to insert himself into it.  
  
"I'll see you in a few, sergeant," the smaller mech said, smacking twice at the door frame as he walked out.  
  
Hawker did  _not_  want to go back into that body while it was in such sorry shape. He really didn't. It would be uncomfortable and humiliating to say the least.  
  
_Too bad I can't borrow that nice Lancer-class Vanguard chassis for this._  
  
\--  
  
"You've been studying," Hawker chuckled as he stood in the Ares' gantry, cables pouring out of the back of his head into other computers, into ports in the floor, and into the gaping chest cavity of the broken 9081. Thule was running around like a madman, getting everything hooked up and checking it all twice.  
  
"Yeah, well, I figure Colburn's gotta retire someday," he said, concentrating. "Wouldn't mind making chief by 35." A pause as he fiddled with the screen of a pad, and Hawker felt the pleasant tingle of a datastream. "That should do it. I'm gonna tell everyone to get ready, OK? They'll be waiting on you to set the stage."  
  
Hawker nodded, shuttering his optics.  
  
"And... go."  
  
He was suddenly ripped out of the Ares and thrust, incompletely, into the body of the Vanguard.  
  
\--  
  
The mech's AI reeled at the disorientation, but he steeled his nerves, ignored the messages telling him just how many systems in the 9081 were offline or damaged beyond response, and leapt like a high-diver from the board into one of his old sim programs. Pulled by the strength of cybernetic gravity, he fell into a familiar construct, seating himself into its limbs, his sensor arrays, its style of movement... its nuclear heat.   
  
_PROGRAM #0083 LOADING... COMPLETE.  
  
ENTER THE PROGRAM AT YOUR CONVENIENCE, CAPTAIN._  
  
He did.  
  
\--  
  
The sim he chose was basic enough - built on top of a codebase that most academies around the US had in their toolbox. It was originally a kind of training room - no NPCs, no variable weather patterns - set in some kind of rural airfield or something. The workable area was about the size of a city block; it would probably do for the first day. Nodding with approval somewhere in his consciousness, Hawker set foot into the program.  
  
And just like that, his old chassis appeared, hardening around him like a shell and suddenly being given form. He looked down at himself, pleased at remembering. The flat, polygonal planes of his armor caught the ambient light along its matte black paint dully, leaving the red accents to wind up and around him like arcing electricity. His hands were as he remembered: fingers 22 inches long and able to each exert 75 pounds of pressure at the tips. His feet, still big enough to stomp in a small house, and his chest broad, thick, and... hollow.   
  
Which was a fantastic feeling if you were a pilotable mech. Hawker smiled. Even if it  _was_  just a temporary neurospace facsimile, it felt good to be back.  
  
He sent a signal to Thule and the tech up in the test room, like throwing a paper airplane eagerly into the air.   
  
_Send 'em in!_  
  
He reached out and "up" with an electronic arm, beckoning with masked excitement through the datastream toward Chris: a wordless, gentle tugging sensation. He wanted his boy in here  _now._

 

* * *

 

 

There is a brief digital fist-bump, an acknowledgement from the training network as Chris enters and recognizes Hawker. There's a longing from him too, a quiet whisper that he misses being in that cockpit as well. Perhaps they can have some sim time together if they can find a spare moment. But he's not destined to be inside his boss today, he's got someplace new to be. And the small presence of his pilot fades, to be replaced by the ticking away of the picoseconds until Soto joins.  
  
\--  
  
"Well?" inquired Virginia Soto, relaxing on the test chair that'd been designated for her. She'd been talking with Thule for the past twenty minutes, occasionally checking on Celn. He is showing some stress, but doing quite well for his first time with Lance. Well, he DID have vanguard experience. Perhaps thinking some civilian would fail out just because didn't have time in the military was presumptuous.   
  
"Hawker's in the 9081 mostly, he's navigated his way into the simulation. All looks green. You should get ready." Thule spoke, his attention split between his tablet and the chair's readout.  
  
Closing her eyelids, Virginia took a deep breath and went through a relaxation exercise to center her mind. SHe moved her concentration through her chest, to each limb and finally into her head. Exhalling, he began to stretched before nodding. "I am prepared." Getting into position, she pushed a bite-guard between her teeth and leaned back in the chair. THe familiar sliding of the dataprobe pushed into the connection on her neck.  
  
"Initiating interface. You'll be in there mome... arrrrr...illll....llllyy.." Thule's voice drew out long as time slowed down.  
  
Then, she was in. And He is waiting.  
  
\--  
  
Chris walked through the basic steps of a new simulation. It started off easily enough, are these colors displayed correctly: yes/no. "Yes." Can you see the four floating cubes: yes/no. "yes." Have you been cleared by the DoD for advanced vehicle operation: yes/no. He paused, then selected "No."  
  
"Technically I am not supposed to let you proceed." came the vibration of Lance's amused voice.  
  
"Well, I guess we'd better call the whole thing off. I've seen naughty CIA stuff with Hawker." Chris fibbed, there is no telling if any of those visions actually happened. He could feel Lance, just outside the large floating words.  
  
"Hmmm. I suppose we could." Lance spoke an a know-it-all teasing tone. "Except that you have been cleared, otherwise this exercise wouldn't have ever been authorized." From the inky black, one of Lance's monster-sized hand reached in and changed the answer from no to yes. "Let's see how you handle your second vanguard."  
  
"I'm cleared? I have a clearance?" Chris didn't get a moment to think more about that as the walls around him disappeared. He stood on firm, warm cement. Around him are the endless plains of the American midwest. It's an airfield, and the blue sky doesn't have a single cloud in it. He turned, and the background of the Rocky Mountains are set piece for an airstrip. And infront of him is all 14' 9" of Lancer, The 8041. He smile up at the giant and waved. "This is a really nice place."  
  
Lance found Chris's arrival strange. Normally a human tried to make everyone their own height, or at least roughly their height. Chris hadn't even tried to make himself larger on seeing the vanguard. THe remote interface is working just fine and he felt that there is no lag or issues from having a pilot far off. Curiously, he reached down and pushed the young man with a fingertip.  
  
It is so strange, Lance really did look like a re-skinned Hawker from a video game. Green eyes instead of yellow, the face is quite similar, bit more friendly. He laughed as a large index finger pushed into his stomach, and he grasped it with both hands. "Hey! I'm fragile and squishy here. So, uh, what are we supposed to do?" He gave the Lancer a pleased grin.  
  
Lance paused for a moment, then kept pushing the boundaries. THe whirring of motors as his hand pulled back, then went around back and scooped up the human into his palm. Little hands on his thumb, pressing on the more sensitive pads as he brought the police cadet up to eye level. Normally humans didn't allow themselves to be handled. It simply is too much of a risk, but here in neurospace.. he could. He did. Both hands now, the other supporting Chris's back with the four fingertips running from the back of his head and down the boy's back.   
  
There is a long moment where he held the kid there, just touching here and there with his thumb; exploring.  
  
"Uh, Lance? Buddy?"  
  
"Yes. I am testing our feedback and interface rates. We are easily at 95% on interface, and I am not experiencing any unexpected feedback. Are you mentally comfortable?"  
  
Chris looked around, hovering twelve feet above concrete isn't exactly safe. But this isn't real, is it? Casually swinging his feet up and turning to rest them on Lance's wrist, he put pressure on those fingertips. "I feel normal." Lance did have a less severe face; the large bot kinda reminded him of how a statue's face might look. "Should I be trying to do anything?"  
  
<I'd like you to stop trying.> Thought Lance. Chris kept worming his way around the virtual blocks Lance had put, and the mech is getting frustrated. He is manhandling the pilot, and instead of being able to explore the situation he is busy trying to.. to.. One large eyeride lifted, and those green eyes looked intently at the youth. "I would like you to take some deep breaths, try to calm your racing mind." He felt the way Celn's head nodded, and the world of the simulation went back to normal. No more urges to poke and prod at the human.  
  
He still didn't quite want to set him down through. But protocols needed to be obeyed! Gently, he knelt and Chris slid off and stood back on his own two feet.  
  
<I'm not sure what you're doing there little human.> Lance self-monologued, <But I'm going to watch you carefully.> His voice boomed with authority, fitting a machine of his size, felt good to use his outdoor voice. "First real exercise. I want you to enter my cockpit." THe front of Lance's chest opened like the armored flower it is. "Seeing as how you feel perfectly normal, let me see what it takes to put you on edge." Chris smiled up and nodded affirmative, his hands and feet on Lance's left leg. Touching him, unabashedly. THe warmth of flesh, the way the blood pumped and a slight touch of sweat with each handprint.   
  
"You feel just like Hawker, at least physically. You're much more personable. Friendlier! Really friendly actually." Chris honestly felt welcome here, Lance hadn't tried to pound him into a virtual pulp. "Hawker was so pissed on that first day. I think I was the seventh person to try. After a little virtual sparring he calmed down a bit."  
  
Lance swore his temperature is rising, despite check his reactor every tenth of a second. WHat is the weird feeling he had right now? He really wanted Chris in his cockpit right now, holding him tight with the seat restraints. He wanted to push the boy in, but he is made of sterner stuff. He waited, grimacing slightly with anticipation. "Is that so? I can't really actively using mental force on a prospective pilot." <Log that tidbit for later.>

 

* * *

 

 

If Hawker dove into the sim, Soto leaned back, eyes closed, and let gravity take her. It was one of her favorite sensations, actually; those split-seconds between meatspace consciousness and neurospace consciousness, where you floated in safe, structured, nothingness. It was like that moment of free-fall just after coming off a tall climb on a roller coaster. Needless to say, one of the items on her bucket list was to nab a ride on the Vomit Comet.  
  
She navigated the calibration steps with effortless ease, counting the objects, lining up the dots, giving her clearance. And before she knew it, she had substance again.  
  
Soto took a deep breath of simulated air, blinked her simulated eyes, and glanced around at the banal, but familiar program. She spent many hours in this one when she was an acting airman, back before she flew drones in Siberia. One of the coders had 'carved' their initials into the northeast corner of the concrete of this sim. She wondered if 42's copy had it.  
  
The air force pilot rested her hands on her hips as she looked around, surprised by how well Hawker was shielding himself from her. If she didn't know better, she might've even thought that she were here alone - but there were some things you couldn't sneak past a Vanguard pilot.   
  
<I can feel the air you're displacing,> she thought with a smirk, taking the opportunity to turn around and look up. "It might work on Celn, but you're going to have to try harder with me."  
  
The giant humanoid machine appeared then, as if from thin air. He stood tall, proud, enormous hands at his sides. Soto thought that, for all his physical similarities to Lance, there was something about him much deeper than paint that could never, ever, be mistaken for her mech. His face was hard, mouth severe. His optics burned with a passion for  _something_  - she'd pry it out of him eventually - and yet were as cold as a surgeon's operating table. He was a handsome machine, too. But handsome like an El Dorado is handsome, or a battleship. Perhaps stately would have been a better word... but then, that would have implied opulence; something she knew from looking at his deadly, imposing form was  _not_  in his MO.  
  
"You done sizing me up?" his neurospace self said, pristine white face hiding a haughty sneer in those words.  
  
"You absolutely insist on being that big even when I'm not in your cockpit yet?" she asked, unfazed by his deadpanned dominance.  
  
"I see no point in this exercise unless you're willing to deal with me as I am, lieutenant." His voice was something else.  
  
"Fair enough, captain."  
  
"Shall we?"  
  
"Let's."  
  
\--  
  
With a snap of mental fingers he brought them to Lance and Chris' instance of the sim, and the four joined the space with a sudden rushing of scenery.   
  
Hawker's optics went straight to his boy, all of knee-height, and in that delicious black linkup suit of his. Chris seemed happy to have complete motility back in all four of his limbs, even if just for a time, and Hawker was... happy to tower over him again, even if under such circumstances. He was reminded, however, of the remote collar that Chris had worn on many an occasion. It was looking like his boy's implant had healed enough to put it on again. He gave the kid a wink before addressing them.  
  
"You've got good compatibility," Hawker noticed, pulling the info down from the datastream "hanging" in the air and integrating it into his simulated HUDs. "Ours appears to be hovering at around 92%." He wondered briefly why his and Soto's rate was lower. Surely, their combined experience would have  _something_  to show? Whatever; they'd find their groove soon enough. "I'm initiating the neural lock-outs so we don't bleed into each other for the exercise. We'll start with basic sparring, got it?"  
  
Confirmation was had, and Hawker engaged the boarding procedure, popping his hatches with clacks and hisses, steps revealing themselves on his leg for Soto to climb. Like Chris all those months ago, he was going to make her climb.  
  
The young woman didn't look impressed at not being offered a giant hand up, but she cracked her neck and headed for the footholds without a word or a thought. It was eerie, feeling a human on him again like this. Her feet on his decking, her hands on the grips inside, her body warming the air in his cockpit. It was eerie that it wasn't Chris.  
  
He felt her rear on his seat and he fought the instinct to envelop her as he did with his pilot, coiling, restraining, controlling. Instead, he engaged the harness and helmet as clinically as possible, imagining how Lance probably did it, and inserted the facsimile needle into her facsimile implant. He closed his chest, now a vessel once again, housing a human. Not  _his_  human, but it would have to do.  
  
"Lock-out in 3, 2, 1..."  
  
<I have to say, I'm looking forward to kicking your mech's ass, lieutenant. And getting your help to do it.>

 

* * *

 

 

Lance wanted an hour with Chris, just to feel him putting those hands on his metallic shell. He watched to watch that slippery black suit move over the rookie's body, perhaps pick the boy up and let him slide through his fingers. Hawker and Soto arriving broke him of his reverie. There is a brief moment of uncharastic petulance, the thought of <Don't interrupt!> sparks across his processors. The feeling fades as fast as it comes, and he straightened up as he locked Chris into position. Firmly, holding him utterly still as he slide in the virtual connecter into the rookie's interface port. Even once they are linked up Lance kept the pressure on. It is a satisfying sensation, similar to when he'd eat an oral cleansing bar.  
  
Hawker could observe as Lance hand his left hand over his chest, stroking over his cockpit. The Air Force mech parted it's lips and touched it's upper lip with it's tongue. Lance's expression seemed to be one of satisfaction as it took Chris inside.  
  
Lance couldn't help it! Chris  _is_  doing something! Perhaps it is a subconscious thing, or perhaps it is premeditated, but in either case the rookie made the grey war machine feel good. Chris felt natural in his chest, as comfortable as Soto did. Maybe it was just the simulation, but Lance had been through four pilots, if you counted the one at the plant where he'd been manufactured. This is not normal for a first time. What is Soto going through with Hawker?  
  
\--  
  
Soto grimaced. Hawker is giving her no quarter in the simulation. SHe had to fight for every scrap of control! Right now, he is moving and speaking without much from her at all, she grunted, exerted her will to try and reach down into the 9081's right hand and make it hers. <Lance was never this difficult!> she through.  
  
\--  
  
"Okay big guy, I'm going to be very little help here." Chris spoke inside the recreation of a Vanguard cockpit. The basic controls are just the same as Hawker's but damn Lance had way more subsystems! He knew some of them, but the rest were a mystery. He'd need days just to mentally digest the manuals.  
  
"Really?" came Lance's amused response, "And just what does a mech need a pilot for then?" he teased.  
  
"Pulling the trigger."  
  
Lance took an honest three full seconds to think about that. His virtual self spooled up energy and he energised his hydraulic systems. "And how would you defeat a superior machine with a better pilot?"  
  
That thought brought up images unbidden to Chris's memory. His foolish younger self fleeing from a rival gang, purposely running past locations where police were known to hang out. Slapping the flank of an automated cruiser, getting the machine to wake up and pay attention. A few punks weren't worth the trouble, but the ones coming up behind them who are armed? Yep!  
  
"Not like we can shoot long range or call in reinforcements. Lose gracefully?" the pilot suggested, trying to move a bit; Lance had him squeezed!  
  
"I don't like losing, Trainee Celn. I don't plan on starting now." Hawker is smirking now, and Lance narrowed his eyes. <You aren't going to route me, you black box reject!> he mentally snarled.  
  
"Well, he just wants to prove that he's the biggest and the strongest." Chris managed a shrug. "Unless you want to fight dirty?" The rookie's smirk matched his machines for cockiness.  
  
"Clever fighting? What'd you have in mind?" Lance likes that idea, crushing Hawker while the bigger machine floundered in a foolish display. Taking out the enemy before he knows he's in a fight, that's how the Air Force does it. He opened up his systems, reaching out to get a much better feel of the station's electronics.

 

* * *

 

 

<Lance was never this difficult!> came the 'grunt' from his pilot, fizzling at corners of their connection. Mentally she was all there, but physically she was struggling against his control of the chassis. Hawker felt her fingers twitching at the controls as she tried muscling him aside to properly seat her homonculous. And like hell was he going to go out of his way to help her!  
  
<Here at 42 we make our pilots  _earn_  it, lieutenant. I'm not a Chevy that somebody can just hand you the keys to!>  
  
"Alright, you wanna play that game?" she said aloud into the dark cockpit with a snort and a laugh. "Let's play, Nine."  
  
With a growl Soto seated her arms, and he could feel the ghost of her body taking partial possession. It wasn't comfortable, and it was far from seamless, but her's was  _one_  way to go about it. Hawker's haptic net tingled and he flexed his fingers around her hand; inside he felt her mimic the motion. His simulated core burned just a little bit hotter at her play. Dealing with somebody who was just as headstrong as him was going to be challenging, but Hawker was beginning to sense that it was a challenge he was going to enjoy.  
  
Soto was sensing the mech's small shift in attitude, and it was palpable in the canned cockpit air. Antagonistic for sure, but one thing was for certain: she had his attention now!  
  
<Who's my enemy?> he asked her, focusing now on the Lancer a few yards away.  
  
<I thought you did your homework, captain?>  
  
<I wanna hear it from  _you._ >  
  
Their emotions comingled, firm but each so full of their own sort of energy. An unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object - or maybe just two unstoppable forces.   
  
<Lance is clever and obedient, but give him an inch in a fight and he'll hang you out to dry.> Soto beamed with some pride, images flickering between them of her mech in action. Mostly sims, but there were some live exercises too.   
  
Hawker smiled. <Just like my boy.>  
  
<Your what?>  
  
<Chris. No wonder they seem to be getting along so well.>  
  
Hawker felt Lance reach out with electronic feelers, then. He knew the 8041's specialty was in communications, and even though this was a sim, the black mech had a hunch that his opponent was going to try using the program  _itself_  to his advantage. This instinct flowed through his and his new pilot's shared neurospace, and when he didn't get a fight from Soto about it, he made his move. If Lance was the sort to use guile at kickoff, Hawker would put his  _own_  propensities to work.  
  
With lightning speed, the 9081 landed a titanium-inconel fist along Lance's gray jowl with a sound like a shotgun, knocking the mech into a stumble.  
  
Soto's astonishment flooded their connection, and Hawker sensed that she was equal parts indignant, surprised, and impressed. And she was trying to hide being impressed.  
  
<Sometimes you don't need to be perfect, lieutenant,> the mech thought to the young woman seated deep in his chest, beginning to feel that they had this round in the bag as he wound up another half-ton swing, reactor warming him from the inside out. <Just good enough.>

 

* * *

 

 

Lance watched as Hawker struggled with Soto, he noted that their interface levels began to drop below 90%. <Ah, two bulls locking horns. This will be simpler then I anticipated.> Casually he shifted his attention to his own and.. 101%? That couldn't possibly be correct. No, the Precinct 42's systems had to be over-compensating for himself and Chris. He'd almost forgotten the new pilot, housed safely and oh-so-securely in his chest cavity. He whispered just to him, 'Celn, I won't be able to adjust the simulation to stifle Hawker. He's as solid as can be. And if I picked at Soto's connection I could risk harming her, so that is a no-go.'  
  
Chris struggled just to move an arm, Lance had the damn pilot seat restraints inflated to their maximums. 'Damn it! I can't get get to the joysticks!' he growled back. Lance was practically daydreaming, not concentrating at all on the threat that Big 9 represented. "Get your head out of the clouds and pay attention! The Captain isn't--"  
  
Lance's pretty-boy face took one hell of a blow! It rung the well-made steel and titanium like a bell. The mech's head snapped back and the it's eyes shut reflexively, the face-shield dropping on protocall. Lance brought up his arms, relying on his gyros to halt himself before falling onto his ass from the several-ton impact. THe 8041 skidded, teetering on the edge of falling over before a quick command by his pilot had him crouching and facing the larger and more brutal machine.  
  
<That.. that hurt!> thought Lance.  
  
<You've never been whalloped before? Hands higher! Toes in the tarmac!>  
  
Lance felt the combat lessons from his small pilot, pushing over their neural link. He had visions of a sweaty gymnasium, the paint on the walls yellowed; the floors made of durable matts with a myriad of stains. A tall woman, better built than Soto, taunting at Chris. 'C'mon Celn! I'm gonna come at you and I want you to throw me this time!' Judo, a humorous thing to be teaching a pilot. But it is a sound proposition, Chris would not be the bigger combatant most of the time.  
  
<You want to throw Hawker?> came Lance's incredulous objection. <He weighs more then I do!> THe Mech's hands curled into fists, readying to strike. <No. I'm going to pummel that vanguard!>  
  
Lance ejected a venting of steam out of his legs pistons, accelerating his mobility and the kind of charge Hawker had made plenty of times. The 9081 saw fluid, of the grey streaky variety, leaking from lance's shielded visor. That is the stuff that worked the intricate hydraulics of their facial muscles. No doubt he'd given the other mech a black eye or worse. Busted lip? Broken nose? Lance is roaring behind that faceplate, green eyes shining through, right hand back for what could be one hell of a blow!

 

* * *

 

 

Soto grit her teeth at the sudden impact - thank god for these restraints, because even for all the shock-absorbers he had in his robust elbow and shoulder joints, it felt like getting t-boned by a semi.   
  
"Fuck!" she shouted, trying to get her bearings after the attack. He wasn't helping her fully immerse herself in his sensors, she could barely feel a thing beyond cold and stiffness in her fingers and toes as she continued to struggle against this Vanguard's domineering rigidity. Where the hell did 42 go wrong? Lance was an angel compared to this!  
  
Hawker, meanwhile, was happy to ignore her so long as she didn't get in his way. He watched, grinning, as Lance lost all composure. The poor mech didn't even bother disengaging his faceplate after Hawker had slapped it in place. He watched, systems surging with bloodthirsty pride when he saw the thin, graphite-colored fluid dripping from behind the mask. His engines roared and the air shimmered with his heat. "Wo-ho-how, two versus one and I still got the drop on you," he chuckled tauntingly, hunching over to lower his center of gravity. Inside, Soto continued to struggle against him, reminding him of Becker.  _No wonder they get along._  
  
Lance managed to make green optics look ferocious as he put one massive shoulder in front of the other to wind up his own hit. Hawker noticed that Celn was walking Lance through the motions of better fighting form, but even then, he spotted bad footing on the front leg in nanoseconds.  
  
Inside, Soto was busy flipping switches as fast as her fingers could move, and when her hand pulled up on a small lever, Hawker suddenly swayed with disorientation, grunting at the loss of his haptic net: she'd commandeered them!  
  
Lance had no qualm about landing that blow as the 9081 stood there like a sitting duck, and took nearly the full brunt of it.  _BOOM!_  Hawker snarled an obscenity as he went down hard, cracking the cement.  
  
"What the  _fuck_  lieutenant!" he shouted, still on the ground as the Lancer lorded above them. Hawker realized that he, too, was leaking a little from the lip.  
  
<Make yourself indispensable,> she thought firmly at him.   
  
Hawker was all but livid - how did she...? And she'd shielded her thoughts so well! God dammit! Soto sunk herself into the homonculous now; he let her do it with chagrin. Unless he could find a way to route control back through his foreprocessors, he  _needed_  her now. <Like a fucking parasite!> he roared back, muscling into her consciousness with his own. She didn't budge.

 

* * *

 

 

Soto grit her teeth at the sudden impact - thank god for these restraints, because even for all the shock-absorbers he had in his robust elbow and shoulder joints, it felt like getting t-boned by a semi.   
  
"Fuck!" she shouted, trying to get her bearings after the attack. He wasn't helping her fully immerse herself in his sensors, she could barely feel a thing beyond cold and stiffness in her fingers and toes as she continued to struggle against this Vanguard's domineering rigidity. Where the hell did 42 go wrong? Lance was an angel compared to this!  
  
Hawker, meanwhile, was happy to ignore her so long as she didn't get in his way. He watched, grinning, as Lance lost all composure. The poor mech didn't even bother disengaging his faceplate after Hawker had slapped it in place. He watched, systems surging with bloodthirsty pride when he saw the thin, graphite-colored fluid dripping from behind the mask. His engines roared and the air shimmered with his heat. "Wo-ho-how, two versus one and I still got the drop on you," he chuckled tauntingly, hunching over to lower his center of gravity. Inside, Soto continued to struggle against him, reminding him of Becker. No wonder they get along.  
  
Lance managed to make green optics look ferocious as he put one massive shoulder in front of the other to wind up his own hit. Hawker noticed that Celn was walking Lance through the motions of better fighting form, but even then, he spotted bad footing on the front leg in nanoseconds.  
  
Inside, Soto was busy flipping switches as fast as her fingers could move, and when her hand pulled up on a small lever, Hawker suddenly swayed with disorientation, grunting at the loss of his haptic net: she'd commandeered them!  
  
Lance had no qualm about landing that blow as the 9081 stood there like a sitting duck, and took nearly the full brunt of it. BOOM! Hawker snarled an obscenity as he went down hard, cracking the cement.  
  
"What the fuck lieutenant!" he shouted, still on the ground as the Lancer lorded above them. Hawker realized that he, too, was leaking a little from the lip.  
  
<Make yourself indispensable,> she thought firmly at him. <That's what my commander always told me.>  
  
Hawker was all but livid - how did she...? And she'd shielded her thoughts so well! God dammit! Soto sunk herself into the homonculous now; he let her do it with chagrin. Unless he could find a way to route control back through his foreprocessors, he needed her now. <Like a fucking parasite!> he roared back, muscling into her consciousness with his own. She didn't budge.

 

* * *

 

 

 **Satisfaction.**  
  
Lance's visor swung back up and the right corner of his lip lifted up in a smirk. The mech's lower lip had a tear and it bled, dripping down his chin. His perfect nose is tweaked to the right side as well. The built up grey fluid dripped down and out, splattering onto the machine's chest. He'd hit what should have been an easily dodgeable blow, putting Chris's concerns to rest. Now, they would finish this little spat and leave Hawker to soak in his hubris. His right arm hissed and gurgled, all of the pistons having been compressed by the blow. With mechanical clunks and pops, the 8041's arm returned to normal and his fist unfolded into a hand.  
  
\--  
  
Technical Specialist Urkan wasn't entirely sure what he is witnessing. Not the fight, but the loop. Lance's primary data loop. The equipment in the station is perfectly functional and told him what is happening. It just failed to make sense! How the hell can you have greater then 100% integration? How do you hit that on day one, hour one with literally no previous interfacing? Short of bending over and letting an AI run roughshod over your cortex, he didn't have a clue! As far as the readouts were concerned, he might as well go grab a doughnut and take a nap. "What are you doing to my Lancer, Celn?" questioned the Air FOrce tech under his breath.  
  
\--  
  
Thule frowned. Down to 77% and stabilizing again. He looked over the readouts again and bit the inside of his cheek. Had he fucked up somewhere? Hawker and Soto were getting along like oil and blood, but this had to be a technical error. He wanted to pull the plug but.. he didn't want to have an angry Hawker blaming HIM for pulling the plug. Soto is fine. Damn tense in the chair through; biting the mouthguard had enough to make audible squeaks. "Jesus." he mumbled, "Get much worse and you'll be down around where Becker runs."  
  
\--  
  
Lance had exceptionally clear thoughts right now. He wished he had a large blunt weapon, like an oversized Louisville slugger to wallop Hawker's head in with. No, he'd just end it here. Confidently stepping up, his arms went to the sides as he balanced on his left leg. The right boot is huge. feet across and yards long. THe mechanics of the foot; normally articulated; pulled together in preparation of old fashion ghetto curb-stomp. Having hit the top of his stride, the 8041 pushed his boot down with the intent of sending Hawker back into his chassis.

 

* * *

 

 

Both Hawker and Soto had different ideas about how to react - she wanted to roll out of the way and he wanted to kick the Lancer's legs out from under him. But they were pulling at each other too hard, getting stuck like a Chinese finger trap. On the outside, the 9081 went rigid, servos whining as they fought for control. But Lance's foot came down whether they were ready for it or not, ready to cave in the delicate sensors, speech systems and processing units with the kind of violent finesse that Hawker  _thought_  he had the patent on.  
  
At the last moment, however, the pair found themselves agreeing on  _something_ : the mech's hands shot out and caught Lance's foot to stop it just before it found its way to Hawker's shiny white face. Engines roared, reactor cores rumbled and blasted their heat as the two metal behemoths were caught in a temporary impasse. Lance had the proverbial high ground, but Hawker -  
  
<We've got the leverage!> Soto barked across their connection. The rest was wordless.  
  
\--  
  
"C'mon, c'mon, they've started already!" Ferdinand shouted, almost slipping in his socks on the linoleum flooring. He waved his arms like a maniac at the others, beckoning them to follow. Wide-eyed, they did.  
  
Downstairs in the motor pool, Becker was busy figuring out how to get some kind of visual feed on what was happening in the sim... and getting on Thule's nerves in the process.  
  
"Fuck, Cory... you  _know_  Colburn would have your head on a platter if she were here right now! The video is going to be terrible anyways." He half-sighed, half-growled as he monitored Big Nine via readout. His compatibility was going to shit... why in the hell? "C'mon dude, you know there's a reason we don't do that shit!"  
  
Becker frowned, tapping away at the command prompt with surprisingly deft fingers, and scoffed at the less attractive specialist. "It's not every day you get to watch two Vanguards duke it out, Brendan!" he snapped. "Besides, Colburn's  _not_  here, and Ferd's rounding everyone up for the show anyways."  
  
Thule gave the pilot the stink-eye and returned to what he was doing, shaking his head. Just as Becker tapped into the sim environment well enough to get a bird's eye view of the proverbial ring, propping it up against some junk on a nearby service cart, the rest of the mech unit came tumbling out of the elevator.  
  
"What's the score!" Ferdinand laughed, opening a bag of popcorn.  
  
Tsung was the first over. "Black and white?"  
  
"I might've been able to get color if there wasn't four people in there."  
  
Wen winced. "And glitchy, too." She shrugged, and reached for some of Ferd's popcorn. "Oh wow," she gasped once she was able to make sense of what she was looking at. "Lance has Hawker on the ropes!"  
  
Thule jumped up to get a closer look. "He does?" Then: "Holy shit, he does!"  
  
There was a brief moment of silence as everyone looked at everyone else. Then by some unseen agreement Ferdinand reached into his pocket for his phone and pulled up a betting app. "My money's on the new guy."  
  
\--  
  
Together, Hawker and Soto twisted Lance's boot and threw him to the side with a sound like a car accident. And together, they stood up to have their turn doing the lording. "Has Soto ever told you how cute you look when you're mad?" Hawker said with a biting laugh, licking at his lip. That felt good, too. So long as Soto didn't -  
  
<What felt good?> came the firm thought from the human inside him.  
  
Hawker double-checked his mental shielding; it was in place. Shit, he was getting rusty. <The fight,> he replied, tightening her restraints the tiniest bit to get the point across. At least it wasn't a  _lie_.  <Being reminded that I'm apex in this neck of the woods.>  
  
Soto snorted inside, moving his hands to 'crack' its knuckles. <Don't underestimate my machine, Nine.>  
  
<Lieutenant,  _I'm_  your machine right now.>  
  
Their conversation lasted mere seconds - the benefits of not needing to use words - and Hawker stepped closer to his opponent, determined to take him down without making the same rookie mistake. Without the help of his on-board weapons, doing so required taking a risk and letting him...  
  
"Get up," Hawker growled.

 

* * *

 

 

"For fuck's sake! Let me work! I'm having enough trouble keeping Hawker in the sim." Barked Thule, nerves frayed. He looked over at Urkan. "You're doing fine. Can you toss up your end on that monitor over there please?" as he tried to elbow becker off the controls on Soto's chair. No respect these pilots, at least not for someone who is trying to cover his ass. Hell, they'd climbed back up to 80%, at least that is something.  
  
Urkan has a half smile on his face, feeling rather sure of himself right now. The sight of the other pilots piling in reminded him of the base, the better times there. And he had to admit it'd been a good scrap so far. A little strange to just start punching right out of the gate.. perhaps Hawker is feeling ancy. "Yeah. Let's see, sim room two, wall monitors.. open broadcast.."  
  
The six screen went from asleep to Urkan's perspective of the fight. Statistics on data flow rates, Chris's vitals, Lance's readouts, and a few blan & white viewpoints of the simulation. Above the two dueling robots, another from the side, one that peered in on Chris as a in-cockpit view and of course what Lance saw.   
  
"You're recording this with proper, anal precision." Observed Jane, before putting ten on Hawker. "Is that normal?"  
  
Urkan gave a little shrug, his voice distracted as he tapped at the chair's controls. "For a test like this, yeah. We'll go over all of it with a fine toothed comb and throw away about 99%. Maybe save the good stuff for a highlight reel."  
  
\--  
  
Lance fell hard. That many tons always would and he put another vanguard-sized dent in the neurospace concrete. Unlike Hawker, he is working to right himself as soon as possible, watching with his alternative cameras to hope that he didn't get turned into paste.   
  
<Lance?> came the warm voice of his little pilot.  
  
<Chris, hang on, I've got this!> It IS hard for a massive war machine to right itself and some mechs are like turtles. Screwed if the land on the wrong side. It took agonising seconds for his hands to get in the point where he'd have the leverage, to rotate his feet and the out-of-alignment right boot into place from when he'd been thrown. Hawker already was on his booted feet; rising up to full height. Lance just didn't have the time to stand before a new strike would come.  
  
"Get up."  
  
<Do it right.>  
  
Lance's scrabbling ceased for a second. Then he resumed standing with the sure, confident motions that befit a vanguard. Into a crouch, then rising up to a fighting stance, arms and fists at the ready.  
  
<You're going to take him down.> came Chris's firm encouragement.  
  
\--  
  
"THanks." mumbled Thule to Urkan. Becker having left the controls on his own. Fucking jock pilot, was like trying to muscle an APC out of the way. Right, okay, Hawker and Soto are improving.. fuck, the hadaptics are off? Christ what else is breaking?.. he hurriedly searched the event log.  
  
"You ever see Robot Jox?" asked Ferdinand, cracking open a soda.  
  
"Only fifty times before I was eighteen." answered Tsung. "I always wanted to run something like a Vanguard."  
  
"Was that the awful 1970s movie?" asked Becker, eyeing the popcorn and deciding that one handful wouldn't blow his diet. He eat fastidiously, one piece at a time. "Or the one where they fought the godzillas?"  
  
"First one. The second one is Pacific Rim." answered Urkan, getting in on the action. "Put five on Lance for me. And can I have popcorn? I can't move from the chair here." Holy shit, they were tech geeks like him! He would need to ask if they played Mechwarrior Online after this.  
  
"Ugh, the effects were so cheezy. You could tell they were models." noted Becker.  
  
"It was 1989! Jurassic Park hadn't even come out yet." scolded Tsung  
  
"Whatever. Oh SHIT!" Becker yelped, getting everyone to look at the screens.  
  
\--  
  
<How? I can't--> then Lance couldn't. He found his mind concentrating on Hawker's thick armor, the heavy joints, the weighted codpiece. No good openings there.  
  
<Think to the second move, you're smart enough.>  
  
Second move? What is his pilot high on? He'd have to put Hawker in a compromising defensive position, damn near impossible. Trying to win in a fair fight is--  
  
<No. Win. Thinking otherwise is a waste of cycles. How do we beat Soto?>  
  
Chris's mental voice firm in it's instance, Lance wanted to ignore it. But, that is the right angle here. Can't beat the mech, beat the pilot.  
  
"Good to see you've finally got him under your thumb, V." came Lance's casual banter, the tone of voice he'd normally use when they are linked. And calling her by an initial, such a personal touch.   
  
his ego is only matched by his frustration  
compromise their integration   
press the advantage   
mock his station   
spur his honor   
ignore his persona   
he is an object   
ignore his voice respond only to Soto   
belittle him his anger will be his downfall  
  
"I knew the boot would listen to his superior once he learned you're the boss." Lance felt the words leaving his lips, surprised at his own acidic banter.  
  
Lance surged forward, steady on his feet and taking small rapid steps. He rolled in with his left shoulder, much more of a classic football tackle then a slam. Wisps of steam came from his right arm as it tucked up. If this is successful, he'd knock Hawker back and then knock a good one into his jaw. He'd next to turn Hawker, get at the 9081's back or twist his damn head off. PErhaps pull a limb from the joint, not everything on their bodies is as durable on compression and expansion.

 

* * *

 

< _Boss?_ >  
  
A grin spread across Soto's face though she was trying to hide it. Hawker was thrown by the sudden change in disposition, but either his pilot wasn't, or was merely permitting herself to be entertained by it.  
  
The black mech bared down, trying to ignore his opponent's words. His targeting systems were repurposed as he calculated the attack vector, trying to figure out with nanoseconds to spare if Lance was going for the hips or the thighs - details which made all the difference.  
  
Soto's grin had bubbled into laughter in the meantime, though, and he felt her share of his chassis slackening. <See, now, that's a mech that knows how to play this game.>  
  
Hawker's form dropped and his face bunched into a scowl as he felt her thought. <Goddammit, lieutenant, this is  _not_  the time to get -!>  
  
Lance collided fiercely, shoulder crashing into his lower cockpit hatches with a thunderous boom and shriek of armor against armor. Sparks flew, paint gouged clean off them both, and Hawker saw no hope but to keep with his intention of shifting his weight backwards in the hopes that he could...  
  
\--  
  
Thule angrily produced plastic from his pocket and tapped it to Ferdinand's screen. "Ten bucks on Hawker. You all are a bunch of traitors, I can't believe this."  
  
Becker laughed, crunching on a single piece of popped corn. "What, it's not like we're putting our money on a Russian Six, c'mon." It was obvious that he was getting a real kick out of this.  
  
Thule looked to Jane and she shrugged. "I'm here to make a few bucks, not go down with the ship."  
  
He turned to Urkan, indignation building. The man shrugged as best he could in the chair. "If it makes you feel better, I'd bet on  _your_  mech if he was winning."  
  
Wen tapped her card next and punched in her amount. "Five on Hawker."  
  
Thule threw his arm up into the air. " _Thank you!_ " he shouted.  
  
"I wonder if he's losing on purpose because Chris is with Lance?" she wondered aloud, watching the screen with enraptured curiosity.  
  
Becker snorted, tossing back another single piece and savoring the salty, buttery powder that coated the kernels. "You kidding me? The mech likes nothing more than beating the crap out of that guy. Has since day one."  
  
Wen frowned at him. "You don't know what you're talking about, Cory. Hawker's a gentleman."  
  
The pilot, easily eight inches taller than the analoguer, cocked a brow at her as he smirked. "Yeah? How d'you figure?"  
  
The young woman blushed and turned back to the fight, folding her arms tightly.  
  
\--  
  
"FUCK!" the captain snarled, landing head-first into the pavement behind Lance, barely able to move his hands enough to shield himself. He had to resort, like his opponent a minute before, to lowering his face shield at the last minute. He was on the ground, but at least he wasn't  _under_  Lance! <For fuck's sake, Soto, get your act together!>  
  
She was jostled, but still laughing even as he pressed her tighter into that chair, flexing the restraints in time, it seemed, with the angry thrumming of his power systems.  
  
"I'm afraid he might be right, Hawk," she said. "You've got one helluva ego, and until you learn to respect your superiors, your pilots, my bird will be more than happy to mop the floor with you no matter who's driving him."  
  
Hawker SEETHED!  _You've got to be fucking kidding me!_  <Give me back my haptic net and sensors.>  
  
<You've  _lost_ , captain!> Her hands weren't even at the controls now! <The least you could do is take your defeat with dignity.>  
  
The mech engaged a subroutine that effectively muted her. He wasn't going to take no for an answer now, especially not from some upstart air force scab that couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge his fucking  _rank_  when she set foot on his turf. Hawker had all but forgotten that his boy was helping the Lancer as well. Seeing red, it was all he could do to push himself up off the ground using nothing but visual feedback. But it was too late.  
  
...Too late to fight fair, that is.  
  
Hawker let Lance get within mere feet of him before launching every emergency flare he had right in the fucker's smug face, using the opportunity to get back on his unsteady feet and prime his arm guns. Naked, he only had about 10 seconds' worth of ammo. More than enough to take out an optic or two.  
  
"Seems we Vanguards just don't know when to quit," he rumbled haggardly. The temperature in his core was well into the yellow, and it was climbing in the cockpit as well. Soto was thinking at him, saying words, grabbing controls, but it was easy to ignore her now.  
  
\--  
  
The room erupted into shouts and expletives as they watched Hawker finally resort to fighting dirty. The flares washed the monitor out with white, taking precious seconds to clear due to the smoke that now hung heavy in the simulated air.  
  
Becker looked smug for some reason as he worked on his last bit of popcorn - looked like he was expecting this. He turned to Wen, who'd started chewing on a fingernail. "A gentleman, huh?"

 

* * *

 

 

The phosphorus and sulfur of the flares temporarily blinded Lance's impressive optics. The heat of their sparking, spitting ignition scorched his flesh and he stepped back and shook his head. The heated, annoying embers dropped and sparked their way down his fourteen foot tall body.  
  
Unlike Hawker, the Lancer featured some of the best in sensory array and camera technology. Like the very best luxury cars, Lance used numerous cameras to create a continuous image of his own surroundings and himself. And with his normal binocular vision gone, Chris suddenly found himself feeling like he is in one of Tsung's video games. He could see a top down view as well as any view he liked looking at himself! The multiple cameras on Lance's exterior forming a continuous composite image of the mech and his surroundings.  
  
And what Chris and a distracted lance see is Hawker standing, arm guns being deployed.  
  
\--  
  
Wen huffed. She hadn't been fucked like Hawker had done to her.. well, ever. He'd been huge, incharge, and made her feel amazing. It would be hard to root for anyone else after that. And she had an inkling of what Chris might feel. Fuck. That is something else she felt guilty about. How the hell is she supposed to handle admitting to THAT? "He's always been pleasant to me."  
  
"You might have to void those bets." party-pooped Thule as he watched Soto and Hawker's integration levels drop drastically down to 75%. Seventy Five! That is the level becker and Hawker ran at on a good day, a full quarter of information not being shared. Fuck. It could be argued that Soto and Hawker were ignoring each other.  
  
"What?" Ferdinand looked disappointed, his gaze tearing from the monitors to glare at the frustrated tech. "C'mon dude, you can't just do that. How often are we gonna get to see 'em go at it? Ever? There only ever were nine!"  
  
Frustration spilling over, Thule stopped watching Virginia's status long enough to get his end of things simulcast up with Urkan's feeds. Now the small audience could watch with dual perspective. "Look!" he barked with exasperation.  
  
Across the statistics Hawker and Soto were at a loss versus Lancer and Chris. The cockpit views couldn't be more different! Chis lay nestled deep in the chair, ambient lighting uniform as his fingers and forearms moved to press at buttons as he grasped the joysticks. The impacts and movements of the mech around him are muffled. Soto 's view is far different. She hard her arms cross, jostling inside the cockpit as red and yellow warning lights flashed around her. She is shouting at Hawker, pointing in anger as they yelled at each other; their feeds filled with static and white noise.  
  
"That looks familiar." remarked Corey Becker. "I'd say that's normal for anyone who gets into Hawker." remembering his latest attempt at piloting.  
  
"Chris doesn't have that problem." added Wen, defending the station's mascot.  
  
"Right, so we can count on Celn and Davidson to pilot the 9081 and no one else. See any problems with that situation?" Becker gave a challenging look to the other pilots. "Yeah, thought you might. I can't wait to try out Lance."  
  
Tsung cleared her throat. "Technically, any A class can try. Perhaps I should attempt?"  
  
Jane let out a happy laugh. "Yeah, then I should as well. You think Kole's going to let any of his avionic operators near Hawker?"  
  
A pleased grin spread on Tsungs face. "I didn't mean that. We could just try linking up. As a test. After all, perhaps Big Nine needs a softer touch." she ribbed at Becker.  
  
"Look, Soto's done everything but pull the eject. It's not a fair fight." complained Thule. "Fuck, is she always like this?"  
  
"Hawker started it." remarked Urkan, eager to ear a few dollars. "And no. But Lance isn't Hawker."  
  
\--  
  
<I'm done fooling around. Let's lend this.> came Celn's unexpected active thoughts. Hawker had the guns out, and they we likely loaded with nasty ordinance. Lance's visor went back down, he stepped back and crouched slightly as Hawker advanced on him. Feeling the ides coming from his pilot, he wondered if they'd work.  
  
Hawker's forward moment increased as Lance's right hand hit his shoulder and pulled the 9081 close! At the same time, his right leg pushed out to get Hawker to drop again. Only this time, Lance went down -with- him! Purposely, his weight shifting so that he'd come to rest on top. Those hands of his are busy, scrabbling, moving, angry sparks of metal flying as he reached up and snagged Hawker's open visor. Wrenching it to the left, he full intended to unscrew the 9081's head off, or at least twist it around and break every connection in his neck!

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker had managed to get off a few point-blank shots from the 50-cal, but not where he wanted to land them, and the bullets ricocheted off into the air. Soto was fighting him again, and by the time the 9081 was on the ground, she had wrested back enough control to have him seizing with 15 feet of tonic grand mal. Lance was on top of him with a cacophony of metal, his bloodlust written on his face hidden by the visor. A thousand pounds lighter, but at a time like this it didn't matter - he had Hawker straddled and prone.  
  
Somewhere amid the frenzy of the fight, the anger and frustration, the inevitability of losing, Hawker took distant notice of Lance's hips grinding heavy against his own. He couldn't feel it - Soto had stolen the entirety of his haptic net, his tactile sensitivity - but he could still feel the vibrations from scraping against each other, he could still sense the sheer weight, he could look down and  _see_  their thighs parted and close together. Hawker realized that he liked it. And that pissed him off even more.  
  
"You sunnova bitch!" Hawker roared as the gray Vanguard grabbed him by the helm and unceremoniously  _yanked_  it to the side. The police mech felt the thick lames around his neck groan and bend, and the delicate machinery inside begin to snap.  
  
He remembered Chris. This was him, wasn't it? Hawker knew his boy had it in him to deal death and wreak destruction with almost as much pleasure, and now finesse, as his captain. Or were all the Vanguards like this by design? His visual feed sputtered, audio sensors lost depth as wiring contacts buckled and tore. And still, he couldn't move.  
  
A voice cut through the simulated air just as his consciousness was about to be pulled into the primary CPUs in his chest, visual feed almost gone. " _HLX-9 Vanguard Lancer number eight-zero-four-one, I **order**  you to stand down,_" Soto bellowed over Hawker's loudpseaker.  
  
The gray mech froze.

 

* * *

 

 

The mech froze and the world around them halted. Inside of Lance, Chris felt as if the whole sim suddenly was filled with thick syrup. It bound and kept all of their movement to a minimum. He'd had it, he'd FINALLY gotten his opponent into place where he could kill and the elation of ending had been pried from his grasp. "NoooooO!" he cried in the cockpit, banging on the controls!  
  
The simulation hung there for a long moment longer, then they were alone. Just the two of them, back on the tarmac of an airfield in the middle of nowhere; fully repaired.  
  
Chris panted, the air conditioning and the fans in the cockpit increased, attempting to cool him down.  
  
\--  
  
In Hawker's office, where the 8041 lancer rested, heavy cables connected it to the station's networks. THe mech had been mostly motionless for the fight. Occasionally he'd move or settle in position. At the end of the scrap, his right hand slide forward, resting against the codplate. A satisfied and deep plume of built-up steam ejected from his reactor vents.  
  
\--  
  
9081 and pilot found themselves in the virtual version of precinct 42's motor pool. The damage undone, the ammunition and flares unspent. The moment of near-death undone; as it can be int he digit world. Just Hawker and an angry Virgina Soto in his chest.  
  
\--  
  
"I uh.. damn!" remarked Ferdinand. The vicious, visceral maneuver, the unmistakable hunger and pleasure visible on Lance's face as he nearly ripped off Hawker's head.. and then the sight of Chris's angst! Their features mirror between machine and man.  
  
"Pretty sure that's 1-0, for Lance." spoke up Becker. He'd gone quiet too. It had ended so quickly, they'd been expecting a long brawl!

 

* * *

 

 

"What the  _fuck_  was that!" Soto shouted at him, her voice practically ringing the metal of the cockpit as she angrily disengaged their simulated link and pried off his restraints. Bitterly, he threw open his hatches, and she performed a practiced dismount, landing on the concrete with a low crouch.   
  
"I could ask you the same fucking thing," he roared back, closing himself up as his optics bored into the young woman standing before him.   
  
"This was supposed to be  _basic sparring_ ," she continued firmly. "Not a gladitorial deathmatch for the fucking  _emperor!_  My god, I can't believe you let that escalate. I expected better from Chicago's famous Big Nine."  
  
Hawker turned away from her and clenched his fists. He needed to hit something. " _I_  let that escalate? Talk to your mech!" he growled, staring off into the simulated distance.  
  
"I'm  _talking to YOU right now, captain!_ "  
  
Something in her voice reminded him of Lee, and instinctively Hawker squared his shoulders, straightened his posture, and set his jaw. Something about that brought him back from the edge. A moment of tense silence passed as she studied his body language. A hearty cloud of steam gushed out from his rear vents, blasting out scalding air. "I'm not your goddamn boot, Virginia." He reached out with his restored sensors and felt her falter at hearing her given name. It wouldn't be the first time that someone didn't like the sound of their name on his lips.  
  
She gathered her composure again, and if she had been headed around to look him in the face then not anymore. "Kole made that perfectly clear to me," she said, taking a deep breath. He 'saw' her look around and fold her arms. "I'm not here to order you around, Hawk. I'm here to make sure that if what happened to Davidson happens to Chris, your city isn't left without a Vanguard again." A scowl. "You didn't even  _try_  to work as a team with me."  
  
He recalled a headline from last week about the recent string of car bombings in Toledo. The week before that, a story about London taking on seawater again, halting reclamation efforts. Another about food shortage riots in Moscow. Another about the on-going efforts to get scientists into the ruins of Pyongyang after one of their 3-stage hydrogen bombs accidentally detonated - the event that triggered the Siberian War.  
  
Her words rang true, but he wasn't ready to hear them yet. Not after today's humiliation, at least.   
  
Hawker still needed something to hit.  
  
"You're dismissed," he said coldly.  
  
She snorted. "Excuse me? Were you even listening to what I just said?"  
  
"You heard me."  
  
Soto threw her hands up in the air. "I swear to god Hawker, if you don't learn to control yourself, you're headed straight for a reformat and that body is going to wind up in a museum display case."  
  
"Send Celn in when you go back to give Lance a cookie for being such a good attack dog."  
  
Soto bit back a growl and disappeared.

 

* * *

 

 

Thule's back is wet with sweat,towards the end Soto and Hawker had dropped down to ineffective levels. Non-integration as it were. They had one last spat in the virtual environment then she signaled to get out, and gods is he happy to do it. Fade to black, de-cycle and the chair brought her back to reality.  
  
She'd been sweating, and she'd nearly gnawed through her bite guard. In the room were many of 42's pilots and the monitors on the walls were showing the perspective of Lancer and Hawker.  
  
\--  
  
Lance vented gently to bring his coolant levels back down to normal. He felt the warm sun on his grey paint, and he began walking to the nearby hanger. He hadn't felt that kind of anger in a long time, and he didn't mean Hawker's attitude. He meant his own furious behavior. In the hanger is a copy of all he had at home, and he wanted something comforting. One of the 5 gallon drums of water, normally reserved for water coolers, that's the ticket! Pinching off the top, he tilted it back into his mouth. Cool, refreshing water went over his tongue and over the material that are his vocal cords. Some of it went into his reserves, the rest ran out over his reactor.  
  
After that he felt cooler, and he sat heavily down on a shipping crate. He looked at his chest, putting his left hand over where Chris sat. A test pilot, a rookie.  
  
As sure as Uncle Sam's white beard didn't feel like a rookie. And Lance knew what a rookie felt like. All nerves and puking.  
  
Chris felt like a part of him. A new part, like a new weapon. But why--  
  
"Lancer 8041, it's Urkan. Please desync with Celn; then the simulation."  
  
"Affirmative. Beginning process now."  
  
\--  
  
Urkan watched as Virginia sat upright, boots on the floor. The elation in the room had been sucked out in moments. He need to debrief Chris and Lance. And Soto, when she is ready.  
  
After two real minutes, Lance still had a pilot.  
  
"Lance? Begin desync procedure."  
  
\--  
  
Damn it Urkan, he heard the first time! He just didn't want to. Or is that Chris's desire? No vanguard needed to breath but he did push air out his mouth. So he took deep breaths and inflated what counted for lungs before exhaling. He could sense his own mental cycles in delicious synchronization with the kid's. When the second request came in, he reluctantly began the process. With full safeties of course, had to be cautious with a new pilot.  
  
Chris felt groggy when Lance relent the solid physical and mental grip. An exceptionally long process later, the hatches opened and Lance's hands are waiting. The fingers curled around him like a cage, and the hatches resealed. The broad thrum pressed over the black suit, up against the chest and up to the pilot's chin.  
  
"Come see me once you're done. I need to discuss what you should study for our next session." commanded the Lancer. A pilot needed to understand his specialised subsystems.  
  
Chris looked pleased. He gave the green-eyed mech a thumbs up before Urkan's voice came over the hanger's PA system.  
  
"Finally! Chris, gonna touch you up with Hawker. Lance, you just exit when you're ready."  
  
Those titanium digits gave a friendly squeeze before they are holding nothing. Lance leaned back with his hands in his lap. He popped open his field report for the day and began to fill in his thoughts while they are fresh...  
  
\--  
  
THe world spun around, and then he stood in a virtual replical of 42's motor pool. He rather liked the open nature of that airbase. But, ther eis something better here. THe glowing features of his captian at the  _correct_  height. "Hey boss. You okay?"

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker had sensed Urkan was still in his chair - still a chance they could be visually monitored, and had given him a bit of a neurospatial push out the door, so to speak. Outside, the cyborg grunted and winced at the uncomfortable sensation, permitting the rude treatment just this once.  
  
"Jesus, what a jerk," the man muttered, shaking his head as he disengaged himself. Soto had little to say to the gathered audience before hitting the shower to wash off Hawker's "bad vibes".  
  
Inside, the sim environment shifted, folding into itself and revealing a darker, grayer envrion: the motor pool, devoid of life. There the mech waited for Chris to join him, which he did in short order. A small, warm ping appeared on thermal.  
  
The mech was standing in much the same way that he had before in the other program. Hands at his sides, shoulders squared, head held proud. Inside he felt anything but. Chris' presence fired him up again. The anger had somewhere to  _go_. And the kid had been the enemy, right?   
  
_"Hey boss. You okay?"_  
  
He had been staring at his old alcove, focusing on his raw, restless energy. But when Chris got close, heat blasted away from the machine's hulking frame and he lifted a leg to kick at a support column beside the gantry. The sound would have made anyone's ears ring as the reinforced concrete crumbled, erupting into clouds of white dust as debris hit the floor. The simulated building above them rumbled and a crack formed in the ceiling, hissing and dripping water.  
  
With a few thunderous booming steps, he stormed over to a startled Chris, knocking him to the floor and putting the palm of his great hand to the boy's chest, squeezing his neck between two fingers just enough to make breathing difficult. He wanted to do more than that - much more. But a sim wasn't neurospace. The rules here were different, and besides, Hawkwer could feel that they were still an open book to whomever was monitoring their vitals.  
  
"I expected better from you," he growled, voice haggard with the building need to hurt. "What you did back there was unacceptable."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris winced when Hawker vented anger at the structure. He'd seen Hawker lose at video games. This grousing anger felt like that amplified by a thousand. Of course, in those games you didn't get your head realistically torn off!  
  
It is a reminder too, of just how dangerous the mechs really are. Of why no one usually let them get close to anything human.  
  
Those thoughts swirled through his head when the world went funny. It turned and spun and got heavy, all so fast he didn't have a chance to think about how it all happened. Only that a heavy shadow loomed over him, blotting out all light that didn't come from those angry yellow eyes. Last night's movie played back to him in a flash.  
  
_"I expected better from you," he growled, voice haggard with the building need to hurt. "What you did back there was unacceptable."_  
  
The pressure and pain Hawker exerted is enough to trigger the warnings of the simulation chair. [Warning, user experiencing above average pain. press delay to prevent automatic de-synchronization] Chris coughed, little flechs of blood on his light skin. Bathed in the cold yellow light of the Vanguard's eyes, dust and water rained down around them.  
  
"Sorry Boss.." he wheezed ".. won't play around next time. I'll drop you first.." he gasped ".. chance."  
  
\--  
  
"Jesus fucking christ!" "What the fuck?" "What in the fucking fuck?"  
  
Wen stared, open-mouthed. Corey didn't like what he felt as he watched. He felt like he might have to respect Celn.  
  
Urkan took mental notes.  
  
\--  
  
The look of blinking realisation is just what Chris is waiting for. And then he hit Hawker with another. "Angry that I .." another cough, breathing making the swirling dust go up in a plume. "..killed you? Heh." that angry, wild look of his boy glared back up, taunting when he is in total physical submission. "Then even the score!"

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Sorry Boss... won't play around next time. I'll drop you first... chance."_  
  
Hawker's optics narrowed but he said nothing.  _Excuse me?_  
  
_"Angry that I ...killed you? Heh. Then even the score!"_  
  
Heat. Hot, hot heat, pent up, suddenly vented with ferocity. Fans and coolant pumps kicked into overdrive, and his scapular manifolds opened like the ailerons on a plane's wing and out roared a rush of air. A moment later venting shut, internal temps dropped by a good 15 degrees Celsius, and all that was left now was a throbbing in the hardware behind his cod.  
  
Hawker seemed to come-to all of a sudden, like he'd been gripped by a fugue. Lips parted, optics blinked as he surveyed Chris' body. His hand shook as he slid it away from the boy's neck, letting it come to rest beside him on the concrete.  
  
They stared each other down for a little while longer, the mech's foreprocessors swimming as he watched Chris catch his breath beneath him.  
  
"How did you  _do_  it?" the mech murmured, rumbling. "I thought I..."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris is bracing himself. Would Hawker squeeze? Would he drag it out? Or would he reach down and twist his pilot's head clean off?  
  
The massive machine surprised him by doing something unusual. Showing mercy.  
  
Hawker crouched there, like a child who'd swatted a butterfly. Observing the little broken thing he'd made. Perhaps a little regret.  
  
Chris swallowed when he finally could push himself up by his arms. His legs spread, his pilot suit marked with a massive handprint. Hawker might still kill him. He kind of okayed it. He needed to stay ready for that.  
  
If it were possible to be ready to die.  
  
_"How did you do it?" the mech murmured, rumbling. "I thought I..."_  
  
Chris waited, not wanting to fill in for his boss. But there was nothing after. "You are, when complete. Guessing you and Soto didn't do well?"  
  
Oh yeah. THat expression said it. "I couldn't watch for the whole fight, but you guys were down in the 80s before it got mean."  
  
Hawker just kept looking at him. CHris felt guilty, damn it! Hawker had this.. this fucking hopeless .. or maybe this unknowing expression on his dark features. "I didn't want to at first. I was looking right at you! I didn't want to even fight. Then you came at me. We rolled and tussled. Then.. I .. I dunno. Lance got mad and I felt that anger and I let go. Wham."   
  
\--  
  
"Interesting. Has the 9081 ever known defeat?" Urkan considered the possibilities. Part of any good military training is knowing how to cut losses, when to run, and how to lose without getting dead. Do cops just keep calling for backup until they win?  
  
Wen felt ill. Hawker could just swat with his hand and snuff out Chris. He almost had! Or well, he'd beaten him up!  
  
THe other pilots are eating popcorn, but this time it's genuine rapt attention.  
  
Becker answered the air force tech. "Yeah. Once. When Davidson died, still isn't over it."  
  
\--  
  
He turned his head and spat out a bloody loogie. His teeth are stained and it trickled from the side of his mouth.  
  
"I don't know what's worse. You looking like that, or not knowing if you're going to splatter my brains out."

 

* * *

 

 

 _"I didn't want to at first. I was looking right at you! I didn't want to even fight. Then you came at me. We rolled and tussled. Then.. I .. I dunno. Lance got mad and I felt that anger and I let go. Wham."_  
  
Hawker recalled what it felt like for them to be in perfect sync during the fight with the Sixes, to be one mind and one body as they crushed that pilot to death in their shared grip like they'd stuck him in a trash compactor. There was something about Chris that was addicting, wasn't there? Something about how his mind worked. It  _did things_  to the DF2.  
  
It was doing things to him now.  
  
_"I don't know what's worse. You looking like that, or not knowing if you're going to splatter my brains out."_  
  
Another silent moment passed as Hawker felt his internals cool down a few degrees more. A ridiculous goddamn thing to be sure; it wasn't even his real body. But he'd be damned if he wan't enjoying dressing up again for old time's sake...  
  
"We've done this before," he said at length, voice low and steady. "I confronted you here, in the motor pool, after you altered my memory engrams. I had you on the ground like this, too."  
  
Chris remembered it well, and the expression on his face conveyed as much.  
  
Hawker opened his mouth to continue, but the words were coming slowly. He sat up, resting on his heels as he looked around some more. He felt lost, somehow, and needed to find his way back. "Soto is good," he relented stiffly. "I can see now how she and the right mech would make an effective team."  _What are you trying to get at, Nine?_  "But she may not be versatile enough to work with me."  
  
He was going through A-class pilots like toilet paper at this rate, and the matte black mech was beginning to realize that this ego of his - no, it wasn't quite that, was it? - this pride, this  _sentimentality_  for being the alpha, being the hero, was going to cost him dearly.  
  
Or, fuck all that - was it just the bloodlust?  
  
Because his pilot still looked good when he bled.  
  
\--  
  
Detective Costa had just stepped into the elevator to begin his shift, still a little hungover from the night before, and was about to punch in the button to his office's floor when someone stuck their arm into the closing doors to squeeze in. It was Colburn, who looked like she hadn't intended on being here this early.  
  
"You and me," she sighed, tapping at one of the bottom buttons and swiping her ID along the sensor to permit access. "Test room."  
  
Costa just blinked his one good eye at her and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trenchcoat. "Trouble in paradise?" he said with a chuckle.  
  
The chief shrugged off her coat and shook her head. "And here I thought Hawker  _liked_  army people."  
  
"Is it the new folks?"  
  
"No idea. You know, Roman, sometimes I seriously regret bringing that puppy home."  
  
\--  
  
Becker stood there, eyes fixed on the monitor like everyone else. His smug attitude was fading as they all watched mech and pilot in the sim, and not for the first time did he worry for Chris' safety. It looked like the rookie was handling himself, though.  
  
God, how did he do it? How did he manage to domesticate Big Nine? The feed on the screen, choppy again after Urkan ejected from the interface, looked like an illustration from any number of children's books about knights and dragons. He scoffed to himself. Who was the princess in the relationship?  
  
"Alright," came a familiar voice behind them. Everyone turned to see Colburn standing in the doorway with Costa in tow. "What's going on in here? Got a note from one of my techs a few minutes ago, suggested I clock in early."  
  
"W-we were running a sparring sim, and..." Thule seemed nervous all of a sudden, as though he was expecting to take responsibility for this clusterfuck.   
  
"And things got  _heated_ , as they do with Hawker," Becker continued for him. "And now look." He pointed to the screen and the pair of senior staff got in close to see for themselves.  
  
Colburn looked livid, taking the datapad from Thule to get a better idea of what was happening from their readouts. Costa turned his attention to the boy in the chair, who was sweating and breathing heavily, but who otherwise seemed OK.   
  
"Your mech has a complex," a man with cybernetic hands in fatigues said. He was sitting on the edge of one of the linkup chairs, popping a couple pieces of gum into his mouth. Aside from Colburn and the detective, he was the oldest person in the room. "Wanna piece?"  
  
Costa gladly took one to keep his mouth busy. "That much is obvious," he chuckled. "It's a question of how many and which ones."  
  
Meanwhlie, Colburn shook her head, glancing back to Chris as though to confirm her suspicions. "Logs say he was hit in this instance, but I don't get it. His vitals are fine. Breathing, heart rate... all normal."  
  
"That kid's got a different definition of normal, Sarah. He's not like you and me."  
  
Wen pointed. "Look, they're just  _talking_  now..."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker is crouched, hands moving in the air as he spoke. Chris is sprawled on the floor, propped up with his hands behind him. Hawker appeared to be larger than usual, had to be twenty foot easy. The big machine reached down and poked the rookie with a finger. Chris rubbed his face against the hand that'd hit him.  
  
Urkan wondered just what the hell is going on! Was this some joke? If it is, then 42 pulled the best pranks known to man. He just watched Soto try and work the 9081 and all she'd managed was to ride the bull until the timer buzzed. Then after just a little back and forth it was eating outta the kid's hand. Whatever the case, he'd be going over the logs hard. Might have to adjust their schedule. "That's a neat trick. Things usually this fun?"  
  
Costa knew another detective when he saw one. There is just a way the eyes moved and took in the world. "Sometimes. When there's new bulls in the pen things always get interesting. Military egos usually have rank to keep the peace. Police tend to have more bellowing. How was your holiday?" he inquired.  
  
Corey folded his thickly muscled arms and rested his weight on his left leg. He wished he could hear or read their dialogue, what is Chris doing? Could he learn to do that?  
  
\--  
  
Chris felt alright, someone scuffed an bruised. Hawker appeared to be calm enough. Slowly he leaned forward and pulled his feet underneath himself. With grunt he came to his feet and brushed off his chest. One foot in front of the other he walked up to the crouching vanguard. Hawker is larger then normal and he really wanted alone time. Real alone naughty time.   
  
"I miss you being big." he exhaled, raising up his hand to rest it on HAwker's knee. Gods below, the vanguard is crouched and the metallic bulge of his boss is RIGHT FRIGGIN THERE! Fuck!  
  
It's easy to see what has the pilot's attention from Hawker's perspective.  
  
"What do you need to make this work?" he asked, his voice echoing the concern of their near future.  
  
\--  
  
Colburn examined the tablet and went over what'd been done. Thule had ended up passing the DF2 from the Ares into what did work on the 9081, then pushing that output into the simulation. Hawker appeared to have dealt with it for the purposes of a simulation. THey might be able to save a little face if they could blame this on poor connections. But Sarah didn't feel like covering for Hawker's piss-poor performance here. He'd acted and would have to deal with the consequences.  
  
"What a mess. Not the hardware, you did well there Thule. How bad did it get for her? Doesn't take a detective to notice she's the only one who's supposed to be here but isn't." she teased the popcorn-munching crowd, "And who won?"

 

* * *

 

 

 _"I miss you being big."_  
  
Hawker watched as his boy got up from the ground and stepped near again. Why did he look so small? Hawker took a half-second to double check the sim's numbers - oh. He was projecting himself larger than scale.  
  
"Guess I do too."  
  
He didn't bother to change it. He reached out and touched Chris, making sure he could at least experience this facsimile pilot with a facsimile haptic net. Goddammit, he  _did_  miss this, and more than he was anticipating. Chris did too apparently; Hawker knew that look like the back of his hand now. And it was no mystery as to where his eyes were fixed. There was another throb in his loins.   
  
_"What do you need to make this work?"_  
  
"You know, nobody's ever asked me that," he said, rubbing his chin. No, this was true, he realized. Not even Lee said so many words to him - their relationship, though, was more straightforward than this. And it had worked beautifully. It was hard work and a lot of fun, those years. He had been proud to take orders from the man, to defer, to be punished for poor performance and not because Lee held him in any contempt, but because he had such high expectations. But feelings were never so raw and in the open like this; not even when his marriage of 18 years was ending because of his being consumed by 42's Vanguard program.  
  
So what  _did_  he need?  
  
"I need Soto to give me a second chance," he said, stroking his thumb along the boy's tiny shoulder. "And I need her respect - I can tell she's putting me through my paces, but I don't need her pushing my buttons." A pause. "Metaphorically speaking." He continued. "I need you to tell me how you managed to reach a fucking sync rate of over 100% with that Lancer, and I need..."  
  
Hawker bent over, so far for such a massive machine, to kiss Chris on his tiny lips. The rest of his face from the bridge of his nose nose to his chin were covered by the giant's white dermaplating, but, really, they'd done worse. The mech pulled away enough to meet his pilot's gaze, casting him in a faint golden glow.   
  
"...for us to get back into neurospace ASAP."  
  
\--

 _"And who won?"_  
  
"Definitely L -!" Urkan accidentally swallowed his gum and choked on it for a few seconds when he saw the giant-mech-on-pilot-smooch, hacking and coughing before spitting it out across the room.  
  
"Did I just see -" he said between more coughing, "- what I thought I saw?"  
  
Becker made a noise like he was going to retch and turned away from the screen, shaking his head.  
  
Wen and Jane blushed, Ferdinand blurted out "I called it!", Thule gawked with an open mouth, and Colburn sighed with not a little frustration.  
  
"Get 'em out of there, I'm pulling the plug before everyone goes blind," she said. "Send 'em to me when they're out, Thule."  
  
"Y-yes si- I mean ma'am. Yes ma'am." He made quick work of the monitor. The party was over.  
  
"And everyone else, don't you all have shifts to worry about?"  
  
Nobody could get to the door fast enough.  
  
"Is nobody going to explain that to me?" Urkan asked the fleeing mob, hands hovering in front of him.  
  
Costa chuckled. "If I recall correctly, there's a field on our personnel files for relationship status."  
  
It took Urkan a few seconds, but he put one and one together. " _That's_  what that meant."  
  
"Yep."  
  
The cyborg shrugged. "Well," he said, getting up out of the chair. "I've officially seen everything."  
  
The detective chuckled, slapped him on the back. "If you think this is something, you're in for a treat, specialist."

 

* * *

 

 

That kiss had his boy blushing or perhaps it simply was suction; but either way he looked quite happy. His hand left a bloody streak on Hawker's cheek as the war machine pulled back.  
  
"Wow!" he grinned, all anger forgotten. "You have to tell those guys what you need; I want them to know you're okay. As far as Lance I just--"  
  
[User as been disconnected from the server.] droned a very bored artificial voice.  
  
\---  
  
Chris kept his eyes closed as the world came back, the feelings came back in his limbs. After a decent minute his wincing gaze opened to see Colburn and Thule peering down at him. "Uh.. hello Chief?"  
  
Sarah turned to THule and winked. "He's fine, stop worrying about the little things. Get that report filled out so we can get some damage control going." Then she looked at Chris and crossed her arms, the tablet tucked in them. "You didn't initiate that and Hawker is cooperating. I'm willing to call that some sort of victory. Get cleaned up, we've got a daily debrief for to do and you're already stewing in your rubber."  
  
"Yes ma'am." He remember Lance had asked him to come by and.. hm. Perhaps he'd better just send the 8041 an e-mail. Urkan is giving him a *look*. OH! Shit. He'd see them kiss. "Anyone smell popcorn?"  
  
"Get going Celn." ordered Colburn in her firm mom voice.  
  
"Going!"


	28. You Win Some, You Lose Some

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris gets chummy with Lance and Hawker has a small crisis of dominance.

It'd been a long and frustrating shower for Virginia Soto. Hawker had been a disaster. And they'd just jumped into things and things had gone to shit; big surprise. At least the station is clearly marked as she rode the elevator down to the motor pool. Her hair is still wet and she wore her fatigues as she stomped the long way down to where Lance is stored. The resident engineers we working on the dissembled mess that is the 9081. Let it stay that way. At the moment, the Ares is still engaged and the large face above is grimaging in displeasure. It wasn't a wreck, it's an unstable mess!  
  
Lance is sitting with his back to a wall in his alcove, staring at the blank concrete wall on the other side. One leg all the way out and the other bent at the knee. His hand on that upraised knee and the other resting on his thigh. "Greetings Lieutenant Soto. Are you well?" His gaze went to her briefly, then he went back to staring. Lance had always been an introspective AI.  
  
"Physically I'm fine. However, we need to do our post battle.. ah, simulation report. Have you seen my brace around?" Soto looked at the mountain of equipment with a frown. It wasn't a collar! The device is a neck brace that went 2/3s the way around; rather like an open shit collar and allowed remote communication with the Lancer. "I don't feel like getting in the hot seat at the moment."

 

* * *

 

 

The sim shut down around them, Chris being whisked away from his proverbial arms before his AI followed suit. Up and out through the computer systems, back into the 9081, then up and out one more time straight back into the Ares.  
  
Hawker's sensors onlined all at once, and he was aware that someone was there to unplug him from the network: one of Colburn's lab people, a drone maintenance tech if he remembered correctly.  
  
"Thanks," he muttered, feeling the back of his head to make sure everything was in order before stepping off the gantry in the small drone suit chassis. He started to head across the expanse of floor towards the elevator when he noticed Lance already back in his alcove. Their optics met for a brief moment, but no words, no electronic signals were exchanged. Hawker fixed his sensors on the ground ahead of him and continued on his way, suddenly deciding to take the stairs. Where? Who the fuck cared. He'd come back down when Colburn needed him.  
  
\--  
  
"I don't feel like getting in the hot seat at the moment."  
  
Lance scanned the area, sweeping every cluttered surface and half-unpacked crate with his sensors and located it on a service cart beside some rags and someone's half-eaten cafeteria tray of pancakes, eggs, and hash browns. He pointed. "Right there, ma'am."  
  
Soto dug it out with a huff, cursing under her breath when she realized that it was almost out of charge. God, this place was a mess! She needed to get things organized if they hoped to get  _anything_  done in this dump. A few more moments were spent looking for the power cable so she could wear it while it was plugged in, during which she took a few glances at her mech. He was normally so quiet and pensive, but the body language was off.  
  
"Don't think I've ever seen you so relaxed," she said with a half-hearted chuckle while she busied herself with finding an outlet. "Especially after a fight like that."  
  
"Celn was very... pleasant to work with this morning," he offered. Soto noticed that he was picking his words.  
  
"I suppose." Aha, she found one. AC adapter in, plug in linkup brace. She waited for the green light on the back to start flashing. "He was your first S-class. Must be exciting to get compatibility right off the bat like that."  
  
"It was  _very_  exciting."  
  
She cocked a brow at him.  
  
He must've sensed her staring because he shook himself out of whatever subroutines he was engrossed in and looked her way. "Though I... I do apologize for the way things went down. We both behaved unprofessionally in there. Not sure what came over me, to be honest."  
  
Soto eyed him a second more before sitting down against the wall and slipping the device on. "Forgiven, sergeant. Now let me activate this thing so we can have a  _real_  conversation..."  
  
\--  
  
McConnell stood on the small balcony of his apartment on the 26th, working on this 3rd cigarette in a row as he watched the snow fall around the still-hushed city.   
  
He, like most Americans of the of the 2050’s, didn’t have a whole lot of family anymore, and he didn't hear from anyone on Christmas Day. Most of his relatives had been in Queens - vaporized when the nukes dropped. The holiday didn’t have much meaning to him anymore, and it’s part of the reason he was allowing himself to think about work.  
  
The other part of the reason was the Noh woman.  
  
She never gave him a first name, even as they sat and talked for half an hour. She was good, he concluded. Too good. And the job, too good to be true... and too wrong to turn down.  
  
\--  
  
“I happen to know for a fact that the Vanguard unit at precinct 42 is in an intimate  _relationship_  with its pilot,” she said, taking a sip of her $20 latte. The foam was made to look like a Christmas tree with presents underneath.  
  
The reporter smiled and raised a brow as he idly moved a spoon through his coffee. “I’m sorry, but you’re a little late on that one, Miss Noh. Somebody at the mayor’s reception got that story already - eight thousand eyeballs on that headline the next day.”  _And a nice fat bonus for that prick, too._  
  
She smiled politely in return, but her face told him a number of other things; namely, that she knew  _much_  more than she was letting on. When her eyes met his again after a brief pause, a shiver went straight down his spine.  
  
“My Spidey sense is telling me that you’ve got something else in mind,” James said, lowering his voice.  
  
“You have cybernetic implants, correct?” she asked. Another dainty sip.  
  
McConnell blinked. “Lucky guess,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “Lots of folks do these days, though. What about ‘em?”  
  
“A partial brachium replacement of your left arm: car accident when you were 15 nearly tore it off,” Noh replied quietly, casually. “Retinal implant, right eye.”  
  
James swallowed, stiffening. These were things only his doctor knew.  
  
“Arthroplasty in both knees...”  
  
He cleared his throat, hands sweating a little. “Wow, did they repeal HIPAA or something?” James said with a strained chuckle.  
  
“I’m well-connected, Mr. McConnell.”  
  
The man froze, looked around. Was that a threat? "What do you want from me?”  
  
"I want you to do an expose on the Vanguard," she said quietly. "The rumor mill has been churning; apparently that mech's Deep Field 2 has been transferred to an Ares mk-3 frame, permitting it to walk among us mortals. The public has a right to know these things."  
  
Noh had a point, but his hackles were raised and he wasn't sure he wanted to take her at her word. "How do you know that Big Nine's in an Ares?"  
  
"I saw it with my own eyes."  
  
"Can I get some details?"  
  
"I'm afraid not. But there is something else I can do for you," she said, her voice lowering as well. She took another careful sip. "I can get you into 42 again, and I can make sure you get a raise at the Tribune if you take me up on my offer. How does another six-thousand a year sound?"  
  
James' eyebrows shot up and he brought his own mug to his lips to buy himself a few moments to think. "What's the catch? What if I say no?"  
  
"Let's just say that the 50-year lifespan of mid-grade implants are known be... prematurely shortened by certain operating conditions." She stared into him with a pair of cold eyes. "Sometimes they fail spectacularly."  
  
There was sweat beading up on the back of his neck, and his mouth went dry. This is a threat, isn't it? James had never been threatened before, not like this "I'll get back to you in a few weeks."  
  
"No need, we'll get back to  _you._ "  
  
We?  
  
\--  
  
"Smoke downstairs, asshole!" somebody above him shouted from their balcony. He didn't recognize who it was.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," James muttered under his breath, smashing the cigarette into an ashtray and going back inside. The door slammed the door behind him. "Fuck." He settled into the couch heavily, and put his face in his hands.  
  
His research about Noh turned up nothing, nada. She must pay top dollar to keep her information off the public internet. There were 900 women with the name of Noh in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, and he wasn't about to sort through them all. Not with that creeping feeling that he was being watched, that was for sure.  
  
What was a reporter to  _do_? There was something highly suspect going on, but... a chance at writing a proper Big Nine story? It could be the crowning achievement of his career, cementing him as a legitimate, cutting voice in a world awash in clickbait headlines and fake news?  
  
Maybe the threat was empty. Maybe it was a ploy to get him to take her seriously. Noh couldn't  _possibly_  have been one of the people responsible for the invasion, right? A ridiculous idea at best! No, that woman's interest in the mech was hardly unique: the whole damn country was focused on Chicago's precinct 42 like a laser beam.   
  
There'd be clout in this for him for sure. It would go viral, he could see it now. And of course there'd be a little money in it too, a little comeuppance... what what if Noh's threats weren't entirely empty?

McConnell wasn't going to give himself a chance to find out because he was going to be busy writing the story of his goddamn career. Nope: he was going to grab that string, work his way to the center of the Minotaur's labyrinth, and not let go until the beast was slain and brought to light...

 

* * *

 

 

Chris peeled off the piloting suit, having not even made it to his room. Colburn was right, he needed a shower, Lance had him sweating!  
  
He'd left his boots and socks on a bench; and a nude Celn hosed out his piloting suit in the shower before lathering up. The hot water felt amazing and he wondered about Lance. THe mach felt normal and natural to be with. Would they be letting him in the cockpit of the Air Force's biggest bruiser? Hmm. How many vanguards are there left? Other shower thoughts went through his head as he got clean.  
  
One of the stiff, free-to-use towels from the hospitality dispenser wrapped around his waist, Chris carefully hung the piloting suit in it's storage cabinet. He grinned, putting it away or taking it out always made him feel like badmat. Soft noises as fans inflated the suit and began drying it in the glass-doored and LED light up holder. On the side are several marks indicating it'd been purchased at great expense for the department of defense. He could see himself reflected in the mirrored finish f the cabinet.. He had some definition! All the time in the gym is starting to pay off!  
  
Oh well. He could show off for Hawker later, tiem for the debrief and then.. he wasn't sure. Probably check with Lance about whatever extra documentation he'd need.  
  
\--  
  
Lance calmly went over their initial findings on the secure server housed in his chassis. Virginia is held in place by the power cord leash on her collar-- ah, brace. She'd always been touchy about what to call the portable interface device. <Unstable, exceptionally difficult to work with, aggressive, assertive. Any other adjectives you'd like to apply to the 9081?> Lance inquired with an amused grin.  
  
<...capable.> Soto added with a grimace. <For all his problems I could feel and I witness a great deal of autonomy and prowess. With a good pilot at the helm he would be night unstoppable.>  
  
<Quite a bit left from what Davidson left behind, then?>  
  
She tilted her head, using her fingers as a comb as she squeezed water from her hair. <Yes. He's not fully moved on from the death of his old operator. I'll bring it up when the 9081 is calmer. Do you have anything else to add about Celn?>  
  
Lance touched his chest plates as he thought about the way the simulation felt. <We had sublime integration.> The mechanical fingers whirred as the tapped against the hollow chest. <Truthfully, I didn't notice him present as much as I noticed him being gone.>  
  
Virginia chuckled aloud, then concentrated on think-talking. <So he's naturally gifted. How well were you piloted? How is his competency? Did he ask you to do anything outrageous?>  
  
<He is competent in the simulation. No mistakes, but he does not have full knowledge of my subsystems. He didn't.. > a microsecond pause as Lance corrected his statement. <He barely piloted me. I was given significant operational freedom. The only direct command he issued, the only real over-riding order, was how and when to strike the last blow on the 9081.>  
  
<Nothing else you recall of note?>  
  
Lance considered. <Celn is the first non-military pilot I have had sense leaving the factory. He is different. I look forward to tomorrow.>  
  
Soto sighed. Maybe the Russians would attack tonight and she wouldn't have to face down Hawker again. <Pretty much just you on that ship. I'm going to take advantage of the civilian nature of this location and get some doughnuts.>

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker had just finished putting a Beretta M9A5 back together after field stripping it on one of the provided counters in the firing range. He'd downloaded a service manual from 42's servers and needed something to keep his hands busy. Checking the action, he loaded it up and stepped over to one of the human-sized firing lanes. The Ares chassis was almost too wide for it.  
  
He glanced over at the other side of the range, the one designed for him, back when he was a Vanguard - separated by a wall of 5-inch thick glass and over-engineered to reduce the sound of exploding ordnance, it looked impressive from all the way down here. He thought about Lance using it, and distantly wondered when  _he_  would get to set foot on that side again.  
  
Leading with his right shoulder, he lifted the small peashooter and took aim with one hand.   
  
\--  
  
Colburn's debrief was quick and relatively painless. Her prognosis wasn't stellar, and she recommended the usual: training exercises designed to strengthen Hawker and Soto's tenuous neurospace compatibility, learn more about each other, as well as something he hadn't done since Lee was still around - chess.  
  
"Chess?" Soto cocked her brow at the chief.  
  
"It's a surprisingly effective way for you two to learn more about your fighting styles, your tactical quirks. It's a low risk environment, so you won't be inclined to start  _screaming_  at each other. I'm officially assigning you to 60-minute blocks of play for the rest of the week." A pause as she amended the schedule. "And I want Becker to get in on a few sessions too."  
  
Hawker rubbed at the bridge of his nose while Soto sighed. "Yes ma'am," he grunted.  
  
"Now go on, you all still have a few hours of duty. Make the most of it."  
  
Soto eyed Hawker as she pushed past the hulking masculine frame, and shook her head. Not one bit of her was impressed by the Ares, he could tell that much. And just as well - at least he understood what it meant to respect somebody for their actions instead of their looks. It wasn't like he'd  _worked_  for this body, not like a human needed to.   
  
Colburn stopped him as he was about to leave. "Play nice with your brother and the lieutenant, please. I don't want another Vanguard in pieces."  
  
"My  _brother_ ," he deadpanned, something which was made just that much more effective by his deep voice. "Really?"  
  
"He's got mother's eyes, don't you think?" she said with a sarcastic grin.  
  
Hawker waved at her dismissively, shaking his head. "Lance is  _not_  my brother!" In fact, the very idea made him uncomfortable. Yuck. He turned to Chris, who was waiting by the door, and gestured with a thick pointer finger. "My old office in 20, kid."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris waited until Hawker left until he turned to Colburn, he had a half-eaten protein bar in hand and wore PT gear. "You wanted to see me for a moment alone Chief?"  
  
Sarah nodded as she placed a well-worn thermos cup into her personally modified coffee maker. It whirred as it ground the beans and began to boil water. "Good job with Hawker."  
  
Chris stood up a little straighter. A smile curled up the corners of his mouth. "Thank you Ma'am."  
  
"Inter-service exercises don't always go well where egos are involved. Hawker and Soto will just have to work it out. You did surprisingly well with Lance. Any trouble?"  
  
Chris munched his snack as he considered the question, still beaming from a compliment. "He's shockingly passive. Like.. like Hawker on prozac I guess." a shrug. "He's been military his whole life. I think he's curious about how normal people live."  
  
Sarah sat on her utterly cluttered desk and considered that. "Anything else you didn't want to report?"  
  
One deep breath later, Chris shook his head side to side. "No Chief."  
  
\---  
  
Chris had given up trying to get anything tasty out of the vending machines. He really wanted some Dr Pepper. As he worked his way through the upper offices his phone began to buzz insistently. The caller ID showed a photo of Lance's face and he began to read the incoming texts. Hitting the elevator button, he watched as they hit one after the other.  
  
8041: Please stop by my alcove when you're done. Need to discuss tomorrow's changing plans.  
8041: This is Lance, by the way.  
8041: Updated my number in your contacts.  
8041: Removed two rootkits from your phone. I'm blocking those websites for you.  
8041: We need to talk about safe internet browsing, your internet history suggests you need education about cybersecurity.  
  
Chris let out a pained sigh as he stepped into the elevator car. He didn't need to ask how Lance got into his phone, but perhaps he could use the same technology to spy around the station. Catfishing Becker, now there's an idea..  
  
\---  
  
"Celn." rumbled the Air Force vanguard as the rookie tried to pass by. He gestured with a 'come hither' and a smile.  
  
The human changed direction and found himself standing between Lance's sprawled legs. Until Hawker, the codpiece here didn't appear to be hiding any secrets. "Yes Sir. Got your texts."  
  
"You should respond, even if you're on your way. I had you downloading information on my communication systems. I've updated your list to include items about advanced computer security. Your file indicates limited technology before you enrolled in the police academy." As he spoke Lance had a tendency to gesture. Those massive hands made some breezes that could be felt as they passed overhead. "Now, are you familiar with a wireless interconnection transceiver?" The large left hand moved over, the index finger pointing at where Soto had left her brace charging.  
  
Chris meandered over, putting a hand and leaning his weight against that finger as he inspected the device. Lance went very still. "Hmmm. I have something similar, a collar, transmits between Hawker any myself." Rising from his crouch, patted the finger, making sure to firmly rub his hand over the hadaptic pad on the fingertip. "I haven't worn it in a while but it works."  
  
Lance is deeply distracted. The ride to and from the cockpit is most of he normally got to touch a human. And that is with his palm. He exhaled, then spoke "When you have time, I'd like you to calibrate it so either of us can use it to communicate it with you. I will assist." He pressed back against that hand, his finger motors hydraulically whirring.  
  
"I.. I'll get on that." He would ask hawker first. The collar is a source of privacy for them and he wasn't going to let someone else in on their fun. He yawned then, the round he'd done in the gym before the debrief combined with last night had him feeling the day's efforts. "Is that all of the official business, sir?"  
  
"Yes, Mr Celn. Is there unofficial business?" curious custom, but not unheard of.  
  
"Yes. Gently pick me up."  
  
Lance frowned in confusion, but he turned his hand to be a platform with his palm raised.  
  
"No." Chris shook his head. "Pick. me. up. You couldn't keep them off me in the simulation. You'll feel better if you get it out of your system."  
  
Approximately 72.43% of Lance's processing power went to recording, concentrating and checking his sensors for the requested task. With the same delicate care that one would grasp a bird, he scooped his up with both hands. THe little pilot sat back, his warm weight against eight fingers.   
  
"I'm just going to wait here for Hawker, he said he'd be in his office soon."  
  
The office is seventy feet away and the Ares with the 9801 DF2 is not in it. Hawker had not entered the motor pool yet. Chris swung his legs back and forth, then closed his eyes. He appeared to be tired. Lance brought his right hump in and touched it to Chris's chest. He could feel the heartbeat, the way the lungs inflated and deflated. He felt as Celn maneuvered his arm and rested it on his thumb, patting the titanium allow that made up the armored digit. The 8041 had a problem. He didn't have protocols for this situation.   
  
"Should I get up?" Chris asked with a grin. He MISSED the way so much metal felt around him. He didn't even want to open his eyes right now, he could pretend it is Hawker holding him.   
  
"Negative." experimentally the thumb began to move in a clockwise circle, rubbing the young man's chest through the cotton shirt. "The situation is acceptable." came the distinctly distracted voice of the 8041.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Sergeant, you got five minutes for me?_  Hawker sent to Kole's phone as he boarded the elevator, already hitting the button for his floor.  
  
Ding.  
  
He exited, nodding his head at a passing clerk, who started at seeing him before letting her eyes linger on his sculpted rear, forgetting that he had proverbial eyes on the back of his head. A little smile curved his mouth as he headed to Kole's office.  
  
The man had just picked up his phone to reply, it seemed, when Hawker knocked on the doorframe. "God almighty, Nine," the man groaned, dropping his phone to the cluttered desk. "No! The answer was  _no_ , I do  _not_  have five minutes for you!"  
  
The mech held up his hands. "I could come back, sir."  
  
"Get in here."  
  
He did, closing the door behind him, and... stood there. Browplates creased, he folded his arms and let out a gust of air, trying to find the words all of a sudden.  
  
"Remember what I said about the temperature in here, Hawker."  
  
"Yes, sir." He cranked down his fans, running silently. Another awkward pause.  
  
"I don't have all day, captain."  
  
"Of course, sir..."  
  
"Spit it out!"  
  
"I need some advice."  
  
Kole gave him a quizzical look, raising those silver brows as he settled back into his chair a little. "About?"  
  
Hawker looked away, at a stack of old magazines in a rack beside one of the chairs. On top was the March issue of  _People_. From two years ago. "About losing, sir."  
  
"This is about earlier, isn't it?"  
  
He shifted on his feet. "That would be correct, sir."  
  
"Alright, look," the sergeant began, leaning in, hands ready to gesticulate. "You get knocked down, you get back up again. That's what Davidson always told you, right?"  
  
"I fuckin' did that, and it didn't work out so well."  
  
"You've got it all wrong, Nine. He wasn't talking about the next hook, he was talking about the next  _fight_. He was talking about  _tomorrow_. Learn from your mistakes, big guy. If you never make any, then you'll never get better at anything."  
  
The thing is that Hawker  _knew_  this already. He'd heard it a million times before. It was a page right out of any basic training manual and every self-help book on the market. Why was it so hard this time?  
  
"Why is it so hard this time?"  
  
Kole scoffed. "Because Soto's good, that's why."  
  
Hawker couldn't help the burst of air that left him. "It's not  _that_ ," he said, temper rising.  
  
"OK, fine. It's your first time with another Vanguard." The man was beginning to make this up on the fly, now. "Maybe it was like looking yourself in the mirror."  
  
"I was ready to cave Lance's head in," Hawker said, thinking aloud. "As soon as Soto phoned it in, I couldn't just..."  
  
Kole suddenly grew very quiet at the tone of Hawker's voice. "Couldn't what, Nine?"  
  
"I couldn't just let him take me out!  _She_  gave up,  _I_  refused to." The sergeant nodded slowly for a moment, watching Hawker as the mech's feelings began to coalesce into something decipherable. His arms fell to his sides. "I couldn't put my pilot at risk, sir."  
  
"But she wasn't at risk," Kole said quietly, carefully. "You were in a sim."  
  
"I  _know!_ "  
  
"I don't think you did."  
  
That was it then, wasn't it? Losing was  **real**. It didn't matter if it was a sim, or Wolf Lake, or Lincoln Park seven months ago with a Browning in his face. "When I lose... somebody gets hurt, sergeant."  
  
"Davidson's advice still stands."  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's time to get back up again."  
  
\--  
  
Hawker didn't remember his walk back to the elevator. His CPUs were swirling, mind abuzz, but he felt oddly calm. He looked up toward the ceiling as he thought of Lee again. He wasn't sure why he looked up - it was something humans seemed to do - and tried imagining the man with some little wings and a harp, lounging in the clouds, laughing at his protege. He imagined his voice.  _Don't go all broke-dick on me now, Hawker!_  
  
He'd almost forgotten about meeting with Chris when the elevator doors opened at the motor pool's basement level. Right.  
  
The mech didn't get 20 feet across the floor, though, before his optics caught the sight of Lance lounging near his equipment...  
  
...with Chris sprawled prone in his hand.  
  
He stopped in his tracks, saying nothing, and was surprised when the anger didn't rear its head.  
  
He felt...  
  
He wasn't sure what he felt. Kole's words still hung heavy in his mind though, and with a small nod, he turned to leave. "I'll come back later."  
  
Is this what losing was supposed to be like?

 

* * *

 

 

The massage felt wonderful. Surprisingly light touch for a multi-ton murder machine. He'd needed something like this for ages. He'd have to ask Hawker to do it occasionally, not like the mech ever got physically tired! With a little yawn, Chris leaned back into the accommodating hands and went out.  
  
Lance's brows furrowed. No question about it, Celn is asleep in his hands! After one minute, Chris is still asleep in his hands. Lance decided to exhale. After four minutes Chris still failed to die from being held in digits that could rend steel.  
  
He experimented, gently tilting and carefully manipulating the sleeping form until he rested fully in just his left hand. He lifted Chris up and watched the pilot. Near complete immobility, slight twitching of the limbs, rhythmic breathing. Fascinating. THis close he could smell the scents of body odor and deodorant, their chemical compositions registering in his continuous airborne tox report. His right hand came in and he tried to nudge the little human.   
  
Nudge. Nudge.  
  
Chris sleepily pushed at the finger and curled up into an even smaller shape right in his palm. Still sleeping.  
  
A noise came from Lance's lips, a sound he couldn't quite recall how he made when he'd gone over the log later. It is high pitched and happy and awfully quiet. He hoped no one heard him make it.  
  
\--  
  
"Celn."   
  
he heard it again, this time Hawker is jostling the bed. "Just five more minutes."  
  
"You need to wake up. It's been over an hour." THat isn't Hawker's voice!   
  
Sitting bolt upright, Chris blinked at the bright lights and the rather nervous expression of Lance. THe machine seemed pleased with itself. "Sorry, I had a long night and I--" his yawn interrupted his excuses "-- dammit . Tired."  
  
The fourteen foot tall vanguard moved his hand down so that the pilot could exit. Mercifully that's just what happened; and he made a fist with his hand and moved it away before something else occured. "That was unexpected."  
  
Chris stretched, arms over his head and folding, he stumbled about and twisted to work a kink from his spine. "Hrrrrf. God. Thought you were Hawker for a minute there. Of course he would've set me down somewhere or popped me into his cockpit."  
  
Lance's fingers rolled, squeezing air before he open and closed his fist. "Hawker entered and left, didn't say anything."  
  
"Fuck! What time is it?" Chris's calm demeanor went in a flash as he scrabbled for his phone. "Aigh! It's already six! Shit, I've so much to do Captain's gonna ride my ass."  
  
Lance wondered many things about that particular statement, choosing just to watch.  
  
"I have your notes. I'll see you tomorrow. I apologise, didn't mean to eat up your time as well." He stumbled before jogging out of the alcove and making his way back to the depths of the station.  
  
Lance brought his fist up to his face, inhaling the scents again. Tomorrow morning is going to be a very long wait.

 

* * *

 

 

In his hands was a $2100 Smith & Wesson M&P series rifle. It lined up imperfectly with his exaggerated anatomy, but it was good enough. He shoved a clip into the catch, flipped the safety, and took aim.  
  
"50 yards," he said to the small console panel set into the baffle of his alley, and the flimsy paper target adjusted itself along the track. The picture on it was human-shaped.  
  
Hawker took a moment to aim and squeezed the trigger, unloading a powerful NATO-style .308 training tracer round with a tremendous sound. Its 2-inch long casing flew into the baffles beside him as a hole appeared in the target, just on the edge of the bullseye at the center of the chest. He vented air and aimed again.   
  
 _BLAM  
  
BLAM_  
  
He took out each of the target's hands.  
  
On unconditioned human tissue, the kickback would have been brutal. Even a seasoned rifleman would have felt it for a while. But to the Ares it was like firing a sidearm, jerking that armored muscle barely enough to phase him. As for his audio sensors, he just made sure to offline for the moment of firing. A vent, and he took aim again.  
  
 _BLAM_  
  
"60 yards." That was the furthest away it could go.  
  
The air in his lane started to reek with the sting of propellant as he got down onto his belly. The Ares didn't need an external scope, its targeting assist was unsurpassed in the drone world. He carefully lined up the sights, ran the numbers, made a few microscopic adjustments, blew one last gust of air, and fired.  
  
 _BLAM_  
  
Right between the eyes.  
  
The door opened behind him and he heard voices. "Alright boys and girls, you know the drill," came Preston's voice as he waved in 8 beat cops for some routine practice. Hawker got himself up off the ground to make room for the exercise, glancing out of the corner of his optics as the rank and file gathered their weapons and protection. "Hey Hawker, long time no see," the main said with a rugged smile, chuckling. "How'd I know you'd go for the biggest thing we humans got on this side of the range?"  
  
"You do what you gotta do when you're in the starring role of  _Honey, I Shrunk the Mech_. It calms the nerves." A pause as Preston watched his students for a second. "Got practice today, huh?"  
  
"They get two hours once a month minimum," he explained. "Takes about a week to get through everybody. Say, where's Celn? I thought you trained together sometimes."  
  
"Fuck if I know where he is," Hawker grunted, taking his weapon over to the side to properly clean it up before jamming it back into the  _SPECIAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED_  rack. "Thinkin' about instituting some new  _rules_."  
  
Preston laughed. "Insubordination, huh?"  
  
"You could say that."  
  
"Listen, Nine, I gotta get in that control booth," the ballistics specialist said, slapping the bigger mech on the arm. "But I'll see you around, alright?"  
  
Hawker nodded as the man stepped over to a protected glass booth behind everyone and shut the door. A headset slipped over his ears and he adjusted the mic before speaking. "Alright you buncha lops, tonight I'm gonna make you  _work_  for those tax dollars in your wallet..."  
  
\--  
  
Internal clock read 6, and still no word from Chris. What the everloving fuck?  
  
He was trying a different tactic this time - taking one for the goddamn team here - and apparently this wasn't working out so well either. He could have walked straight up to that 6-tone wingnut sitting in the motorpool and thrown his weight around. But  _apparently_  that's not how you make inroads, so he waited. Picked himself up.  
  
Hawker noticed that what he was feeling right now was keen disappointment rather than explosive anger, something that didn't happen very often - and definitely wasn't something he had previously felt necessary to dissect as an emotion. As he took his time making his way back down to the motor pool, strolling around the long way, taking the stairs again, he began to get a sense that his disappointment could be weaponized - or at the very least used to great effect, perhaps moreso than anger.  
  
He recalled Chris' words from when he had him on the floor in the motor pool during those first couple of weeks.  _You're weak_ , the small, fragile human had said. Hawker knew intuitively that the boy was right, but only now was he beginning to piece something together about what that really meant. It was the  _anger_  that was weak.  
  
Rules, he remembered as he pushed open the door to the motor pool with a clacking of the release bar. He wanted rules in place for the boy  _and_  the Lancer to follow. Rules calmed the nerves, too.  
  
"Where's my scab?" Hawker firmly said when Lance came into view again, sans Chris.  
  
Lance seemed a little taken aback at the unforgiving language, blinking his green optics at the diminutive machine. "He... he went looking for you, I believe." A pause as Hawker said nothing, waiting for the rest. "Captain." There.  
  
" _You_ ," he said, pointing, "And I are going to have a little chat later." With that, he strode over to the old office and disappeared inside.  
  
The space was piling up with skids of parts and supplies for the repair job on the 9081, which irked him, but at least the crates gave him someplace to sit at this scale. It was dimly lit and warm in there, the banks of servers humming away in the dark like old friends. But he didn't come in here to reminisce.  
  
 _You were to meet me in the office, Celn,_  Hawker sent via text.  _You disobeyed._  
  
He thought about his encounter with Wen, about the fact that Chris didn't know. He was going to come clean about that eventually, he had no interest in keeping it a secret, but he permitted himself a moment to consider why it is that he felt that that was different. Why it didn't count.  _It just **doesn't**_ , is all he could come up with after a few seconds. Hawker was the superior, and Chris was the subordinate. Simple, right?

 

* * *

 

 

Apparently for Lance, later meant about two minutes. A secure wireless connection popped up, Lance wanting to talk machine to machine like they could. Not modulating airwaves like their meatbag companions did.  
8041> Hey.   
8041> Are there rules about how you are allowed to handle humans? Regulations?  
8041> I am not to touch, grasp or reach for humans unless it is a rescue or a boarding.  
8041> My pilot doesn't like it. I think she'd rather jump out then ride my palm down. She prefers to be in control.  
8041> He needed the sleep and I didn't want him to get up.   
Ten seconds passed.  
8041> Does he always break convention like this?  
  
\--  
  
Chris woke up at the desk in his bedroom, the familiar tingle of the interface plug pulsing at the back of his skull. 35 freaking sections left on Lance, some of which had subsections. With a groan he pulled the connecter and rested it in the cradle. Mental fatigue, they had said.   
  
'Sure you can download great blocks of information into your on-board storage. But you're organizing your grey matter along with the built-in data modules. Expect migraines.' he recalled from the pre-implant days. Of course you wanted to put in sweet kungfu moves into your brain. But it didn't really work that way. How great would it be if he could implant some of the same motivation HAwker had. He wished he had the same drive as his boss.  
  
 _Vrrrt. Vrrrt._ Went his phone.  
  
"Fucking hell Lance.." he muttered, picking it up off his desk. Oh. It is Hawker?  
  
9081: You were to meet me in the office, Celn.  
9081: You disobeyed.  
  
A good forty minutes ago as well. Damn it. He texted back. 'I'm in my room, just finished some downloads. Sorry. Fell asleep while talking to Lance. He was supposed to let me know when you came by. Still want me down there?'  
Sent.  
  
Rubbing his face he let out a sigh before saving his progress. Hawker is jealous, the question is just how much? And would he be able to deal with it instead of acting like a fool?  
  
Perhaps a blowjob might calm him down, and making the magnus gush always is fun.

 

* * *

 

 

 _8041 > Hey.   
8041> Are there rules about how you are allowed to handle humans? Regulations?  
8041> I am not to touch, grasp or reach for humans unless it is a rescue or a boarding.  
8041> My pilot doesn't like it. I think she'd rather jump out then ride my palm down. She prefers to be in control.  
8041> He needed the sleep and I didn't want him to get up.   
  
8041> Does he always break convention like this?_  
  
Hawker bristled. He could sense  _some_  emotions over such a connection, but it was limited. The Lancer seemed to be telling the truth, at least. The AI was practically a Dudley Do-Right as far as he could tell.  
  
When he wasn't being backed into a corner in a training sim, that is.  
  
9081> Did I not say 'later', sergeant?  
  
8041> You didn't specify the timeframe.  
8041> ...sir.  
  
9081> It's an  _idiom_ , therefore suggesting... you know what, forget it. I don't have the patience for this right now.  
9081> Any messages from Celn while he's been avoiding me?  
  
8041> He hasn't been responding to me either, captain.  
  
9081> ...Good.  
  
8041> Pardon?  
  
9081> Nothing.  
  
About 20 seconds ticked by.  
  
9081> Actually, while I've got you here, I'm giving you a formal protocol to follow when dealing with a member of another mech team. Specifically  _my_  team. Celn, specifically. What you do with Soto is your own damn business.  
  
8041> Yes?  
  
9081>  _Ask before you touch_.  
  
8041> I... I didn't... I mean, I never intended any disrespect, Hawker. Celn made it seem like...  
  
9081> Got a problem, Lancer?  
  
8041> No, sir.  
  
9081> And wingnut?  
  
8041> Yes?  
  
9041> I prefer face-to-face conversation.  
  
He severed their connection, leaving the Vanguard to puzzle that one over. Meanwhile, he sat in the dark and waited.  
  
\--  
  
Hawker had allowed himself to fall into a low-power state while he sat and counted the minutes tick by. And he counted quite a few of them.  
  
Too many, actually, before the little ping at the edge of his consciousness roused him back to cogency: a text from the boy.  
  
 _'I'm in my room, just finished some downloads. Sorry. Fell asleep while talking to Lance. He was supposed to let me know when you came by. Still want me down there?'_  
  
The mech was stunned.   
  
"This is what I fucking get for letting him flirt with another pilot's mech," Hawker growled to himself, standing up from where he sat to storm over to the office door and slam it shut behind him. Oh, he was going to pick himself back up, alright. Fuck losing.  
  
Outside, Lance seemed eager to talk more, but Hawker threw up his hand and kept walking. " _Not now, sergeant!_ " he barked, and Lance shut his mouth. Good boy.  
  
The elevator took him to the pilot's dorm, where Ferdinand was passed out on the couch while Tsung played some game or another - he didn't even glance at the TV - with headphones on. Nobody seemed to notice him pass by like a freight train, headed straight for Chris' door. It was open by a crack, and the room beyond was lit only by a small tasklamp at the desk, which the boy sat at groggily.  
  
Hawker entered, shutting the door roughly and locking it before staring his pilot down.  
  
"Must be nice to do whatever you feel like doing, whenever you feel like doing it, Celn," he said before the boy could get a word in. He reached into his pocket and produced a pill bottle.  _Chris'_  pill bottle, to be exact. He pinched it between two fingers and gave it a little shake. "Now I wonder what would happen if I didn't give you one of these for the next two days... because I got tired and didn't  _feel_  like it. Or if I neglected to describe your performance adequately enough in my daily report, because I... fell asleep talking to Lance." Hawker took a step closer, still holding the pills. "What happened to that gung-ho attitude from earlier, kid?"  
  
Chris was about to protest in that way of his - jokey and charming - he could see it, and he cut him off with a finger.  
  
"Gross negligence," he rumbled firmly, enunciating every syllable as he stepped up right next to that tired little body. "I could tolerate you beating me in the sim, I could tolerate you getting cozy with the Lancer, but  _this..._  I will take to Kole if it ever happens again. Got it?"

 

* * *

 

 

Lance frowned as Hawker severed their connection. Hawker is a number of contradictions. He wanted to be viewed as a machine, but refused to act like one. He demanded respect, but gave little reason for it other then rank and size. And one of those didn't exist right now. Is he missing something?  
  
Perhaps. It is early for a full judgement of the 9081's character.  
  
Ask before he touches? Very well, that beats no touching. Not as pleasant as touch when he wants however. He looked at his closed left hand and brought it up to his face again. THe scent of the human is still there, pheromones and deodorant and bacteria. A whim struck him. A whim that came from someplace in his lower processes.  
  
Lance touched his tongue to his palm, where Celn had been for an hour. Slightly salty, mixed with cotton and industrial detergent from his clothing.  
  
Self-consciously he dropped his arm, no one saw that?   
  
<Why did I do that?> is the thought that hounded him for the next few hours.  
  
\---  
  
 _"Gross negligence... Got it?"_  
  
wat.  
  
Chris's face had a number of expressions and at this moment it's confused submission. Rather like a puppy that's done something wrong, but who has no idea why it's being yelled at now.  
  
Something in his brain shifted, perhaps that there's no place to run and he actually has to face his problem here. His seven-foot boss and partner of a problem. The issue isn't that he fell asleep. No. It's that he's not showing Hawker respect.  
  
And that little idea takes root as he squares his shoulders and stands up straighter to peer into those glowing yellow eyes. "I understand, sir."  
  
And would Lance really ever be what Hawker is? No. He'd never fill that need Chris had for a dominant partner. Lance would be gone someday too. Chris really was snubbing gold for chrome here. And then there is the real issue of their own partnership. THe few seconds they had as mech and pilot felt far, far better than his time with Lance. And that, honestly is the worst. He kinda.. kinda was cheating on Hawker there. And that's no good.  
  
"Sir, I think we should establish some more rules."  
  
The pilot is wonderfully exhausted, but the threat of not having the deep aches in his muscles and skin alleviated is more than enough to wake him brain up. "About what we can do, and what we need permission to do. Training with Lance; appropriate. Talking to Lance; appropriate." he ticked off those examples on his right hand. "SNuggling up into his hands, pretending they are yours?" his left thumb. "Not fair to you."  
  
HIs hands go down to his sides, nice and respectful. "Perhaps you can suggest some rules of engagement, sir." A thought struck him and his face went to a look of surprise. "Do.. do you want to have an open relationship?" <Fuck. Maybe he's a one-boy kind of mech!> "I, uh, what are we Boss? In terms of our non-professional relationship."

 

* * *

 

 

_"Sir, I think we should establish some more rules."_

Hawker nodded, satisfied at having his boy's full attention. In fact, Chris' body language suggested that his words had even sunk in.

_"Snuggling up into his hands, pretending they are yours?"_

_You were pretending they were... mine?_

Hawker hid his genuine surprise. __

_"Not fair to you."_

He vented wearily, suddenly feeling sluggish. He needed to comb through his files and dump his caches from the past few days. There was a surprising amount of stuff there, weighing him down.

_"Perhaps you can suggest some rules of engagement, sir."_  

A thought seemed to occurred to him. 

_"Do.. do you want to have an open relationship?"_

...then another. Hawker cocked a brow, listening intently to Chris' words, feeling the thrumming of his systems, focusing on  _not_  jumping the gun.  _Listen to him. Let him finish._

_"I, uh, what are we Boss? In terms of our non-professional relationship."_

For the second time in a row he was caught off-guard, and this time wasn't able to hide it. He blinked, shoulders slackening, as it began to occur to him that he had made an assumption about their relationship that Chris did not necessarily share. And you know what they say about assuming things.

The pretense was gone, and he was left feeling stripped of rank: naked.

_What are we?_

It was nice feeling like he had it figured out without having to hash out the messy, frustrating, and rather unsexy details. It was nice feeling like this had all been so effortless, like it was just some byproduct of natural law.

"I thought we were dating," he said softly, deep voice betraying a little of the uncertainty he was feeling. "I thought that you... were my..." Christ, why did words make everything sound so small and fucking  _trite!_  Hawker turned from Chris to study a wall. "I thought you wanted me to be in charge," he decided. "On and off-duty. In and... out of bed." A venting of tepid air. "Please, correct me if I've been wrong this whole time."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"I thought we were dating."_  
  
"I think we are. Steady as they used to say."  
  
 _"I thought that you... were my..."_  
  
Hawker turning and not being able to finish is exceptionally fitting for the brute. <Your boyfriend? Slave? Partner? Perhaps all three. When the mood strikes me, or when duty calls I guess. Not sure what I'm wanting either. And do I really gotta decide?>  
  
Chris figited, and then decided to look a the large and shapely behind of the Ares.  
  
"I thought you wanted me to be in charge. On and off-duty. In and... out of bed."   
  
 **OH!**  
  
That explained so very much and CHris smiled at that as the light of clarity broke through. HAwker in control all of the time? No. That idea needed to end.  
  
 _"Please, correct me if I've been wrong this whole time."_  
  
Clen crossed the small distance between himself and his mech. He hugged the ares from behind, his face in the rear armor of the fantastic machine. His arms went around as best they should, hugging just below the mighty pectorals. Hawker could feel the warmth of his pilot's skin on his back, feel his breath as spoke.  
  
"You mis-understood, not wrong. I want you. I want to be your boyfriend, your pilot and your s.." he swallowed. There are words that're hard for him to say too. "Your.. hrrf. I don't have the right word. Pet? Slave? Toy? SOmething like that. I"m all of those things boss. I like having you in control. It gets my heart racing and my dick hard."  
  
He moves his hands up an down a little, then squeezed. "When we're on duty I'm your subordinate, and I feel that I should have the respect I earn. When we're off duty, pretty damn equal with you still incharge. You're faster, stronger and.. well, dunno if smarter's correct but you have more knowledge. And in bed? Somewhere between lover and bitch, depending on the mood."  
  
He moved back enough to turn his head, and the put his nose on the like that ran over the Ares's spine. "Maybe you though'd there would be a moment of definition and Bam! we'd just be that way forever. I'm going to change. So will you. ANd I wanna explore all of that as yours." His voice cracked, his eyes wet fromt he brutal and honest emotions of the moment.

 

* * *

 

 

_"You mis-understood, not wrong. I want you. I want to be your boyfriend, your pilot and your s.."_  
  
...  
  
 _"Your.. hrrf. I don't have the right word. Pet? Slave? Toy? SOmething like that. I"m all of those things boss. I like having you in control. It gets my heart racing and my dick hard."_  
  
Hawker snorted a little, feeling the boy's arms reaching around him. It was nice.  
  
 _"When we're on duty I'm your subordinate, and I feel that I should have the respect I earn. When we're off duty, pretty damn equal with you still in charge. You're faster, stronger and.. well, dunno if smarter's correct but you have more knowledge. And in bed? Somewhere between lover and bitch, depending on the mood."_  
  
Hee  _really_  snorted at the 'smarter' comment. Especially funny was the 'knowledge' one following it -  _this_  iteration of the DF2 known as "Hawker" was barely old enough to be in 3rd grade. Sure, he could download entire libraries in minutes, consume the complete content of a million websites in an afternoon, travel the world through the virtual reality of simulations, and carry years' worth of impeccably concrete memories that he could recall at a moment's notice... but Hawker knew for certain that he didn't feel as knowledgeable as any of the humans that he looked up to.  
  
 _"Maybe you though'd there would be a moment of definition and Bam! we'd just be that way forever. I'm going to change. So will you. And I wanna explore all of that as yours."_  
  
The mech felt the wetness against his back and decided to turn around so he could hold Chris close too. "That's all I want," he said, wrapping those massive arms around him. He started rubbing a tight circle around the small of his back. "I wouldn't trade you as a pilot or a lover for anything in the world." Hawker grinned that roguish grin of his, hinting as it did at an underlying intensity of character. "Or bitch, for that matter."  
  
With hands on Chris' shoulders, though, he directed them both to sit down on that damned floor-bound mattress so they could talk a little more comfortably.   
  
"However," he continued, taking a seat beside his human, "You  _did_  make a mistake today. You were still on-duty when you disobeyed a direct order from your aforementioned superior. I don't care how cute your ass looks in that suit, I will  _not_  tolerate that kind of behavior in my unit." A pause for effect. "You should have requested to be dismissed early so you could take a fuckin' nap. I would have given it to you, no problem. However, little S-class virtuoso that you are, you somehow thought you could get 25 hours' worth of work done in a 24-hour day."  
  
Another pause, but not for effect. The smile disappeared from his face and his optics searched the floor between his feet. "I was mad because of what went down today, I'll own that," he said in a low voice. "But I was also mad because... you never did this to me before. You've never been late to anything, you don't mouth off, you keep your shoes polished, and you never phone it in like  _some_  people around here do," he said, mostly referring to Ferd. "I guess I was surprised more than anything."  
  
Hawker turned back to his pilot. "One of my first rules is going to be this: if you've reached your limit, it's your responsibility to  _tell_  me. None of this chickenshit. Rule number two: ask me before getting handsy with anybody else, flesh  _or_  metal." Leslie Wen came back to mind here. Well, it was a good a time as any to come clean about that. "And before I ask that the same should not apply to me... you should know that Wen came onto me a few nights ago."

 

* * *

 

 

"Yes sir. I'll let you know when I think I have too much to handle." and then his face went a lovely embarrassed red at the other implications of such a statement.  
  
He listened and rested his hands in his lap as he sat next to his boss, their legs just touching. While not mentioned, he had a habit of keeping his mouth closed most of the time. Perhaps it is from his days in a gang, where talking out of turn can get you beaten.  
  
 _"And before I ask that the same should not apply to me... you should know that Wen came onto me a few nights ago."_  
  
Chris's jaw dropped! He leaned back a moment as the thoughts and ideas of such a thing came rushing at him. Wen wanted Hawker? Ares version Hawker?  
  
Well is made sense from a physical standpoint. Hawker is peak perfection in terms of build and , heh, dick size. To a size queen like Celn bigger is always better, even when fitting didn't really happen.   
  
Curiosity, frustration mix on the rookie's face as he considers the possibility.  
  
"She came onto you?" he inquired, voice higher pitched then normal due to his incredulity.   
  
He thought a moment more, then "I mean, I can understand why. You look amazing in that chassis. Not as good as the 9081, but still good. And she wanted you to rock her world. She's shorter than I am too."  
  
What would that have looked like? Fuck, it must have been amazing to see the mangus parting Wen's tight folds. The mess she musta been in when he'd finished. Did Hawker record it? COuld he play it back and see how that moment had gone?  
  
He looked the mech dead in the eye, the pendulum of their relationship swinging. "Did you have sex with her?"

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker listened intently, almost silent running as he tried to gauge Chris' reaction. The boy's heart rate picked up and his surface temperature seemed to climb a bit. Then came the rationalizing - perhaps to be expected. Chris got along with the analoguer as a friend, too. There were  _two_  relationships at stake here.  
  
 _"Did you have sex with her?"_  
  
The mech didn't bring up his admittedly unconventional sense of morals, didn't cite the lopsided nature of their dynamic, didn't make an excuse as the human held his yellow gaze.  
  
"I did," he said simply.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris leaned back, his gaze going down to look at their boots as he had a think.  
  
His hand stroked over his jaw, his eyes darting and he trembled slightly. His breathing came and went in little puffs as he wrestled with the facts.  
  
Four minutes passed before he'd apparently wrangled up a decision.  
  
"I'm upset that you didn't tell me." he spoke, looking off at the blank wall.  
  
He inhaled and held a breath. Then he let out one long exhale.  
  
"She's really cute too."   
  
Hawker felt the warm heat of his boy resting against his flank.  
  
"So.. you're always clean. Assuming you hose off. And you can't get anyone pregnant." he ticked off thoughts on his fingers.  
  
"And.. fuck. I wish I could have watched as you were doing that. It must have felt amazing." that point got the other digits on his hand.  
  
"Hell's donkeys. Fuck." He swore, feeling an important decision.  
  
All Right, look. Like you said. Permission. I'm okay with you being with other people as long as you ask me first. And of course the same applies to me. And if you let me know, maybe I can pop on the collar and enjoy your perspective. I'd fucking love that!"  
  
THe idea of being Hawker in bed? Oh hells yeah!  
  
"And threesomes? With the right person yes. Wen for sure." Smooching her? With Hawker watching? He whined just a little.  
  
They shared one mind at times. Their desires, their perversions would bleed over.   
  
"I forgive you. Please don't do that again."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker let Chris get it all out as he reached into his pocket for the little device Colburn gave him and switched it on. It produced no gas or airborne particulates that was detectable by humans, but the chemical composition of the inhalant was designed to trigger the appropriate subroutines in the Ares' software.  
  
He put it to his mouth and pressed the button, feeling a fraction of a percent calmer.  
  
 _"So.. you're always clean. Assuming you hose off. And you can't get anyone pregnant."_  
  
"Thank fuck for that," he rumbled quietly.  
  
 _"And.. fuck. I wish I could have watched as you were doing that. It must have felt amazing."_  
  
The mech snapped his head in Chris' direction. He was... excited at the idea?  
  
 _"Hell's donkeys. Fuck. And threesomes? With the right person yes. Wen for sure."_  
  
Well, shit.  
  
 _"I forgive you. Please don't do that again."_  
  
Hawker's knee-jerk was  _I knew it wouldn't be that big of a deal_  but he caught himself, his conscience muscling in to remind the rest of him that lying by omission was still lying. Lee didn't suffer liars, and Hawker didn't either, so why should Chris?  
  
 _He's yours, so long as he agrees to the terms first._  The operative word being 'first'.  
  
But he bristled at having to ask Chris' permission before fooling around with others. He'd be safe and sane about it, so what else was there? Did he just want to feel like he had a say in the matter? Not the Hawker even had an idea of who else he'd fuck around here - there was a  _reason_  that sex among your coworkers and subordinates was so highly discouraged - and he hadn't given much thought yet to getting out and being a mech about town. Not that it would be difficult to find somebody in a bar...  
  
"Thank you," he said, pressing his knee against Chris'. "And I won't."  
  
He took another 'sip' of the slug's electrochemical cocktail.  
  
"I hope you appreciate how difficult it's going to be for me to wrap my head around needing to ask  _your_  permission to do something," he admitted frankly. "There's not a whole lot about it that makes sense to me. But I give a damn, so I'm going to to my best to give that to you." Even the language he used was one of concession here, not equality. It would take a while before he could begin to grasp how relationships worked outside the structures of rank.  
  
Hawker leaned over to give Chris a kiss on the hair before flashing him a little smile. "Alright, Mr. Celn?" He remembered the pill bottle in his hand and gave it another contemplative giggle before opening it up and producing a single white tablet. "And I'll see what I can do about that threesome. It's no yard-long dick, but I think the Magnus is more than enough for two mouths to work on." He handed Chris the pill, smiling wider and feeling his cock twitch in those BDUs. "What do you think?"

 

* * *

 

 

_"I hope you appreciate how difficult it's going to be for me to wrap my head around needing to ask your permission to do something."_  
  
Chris chuckled at that, shaking his head. He knew Hawker is serious, but the nature of the statement still felt ridiculous.  
  
"It's not about me telling you who you can and can't dick around. Answer is going to be yes most most of the time." he explained, using his hands to mimic a balanced scale. "It's mostly about me knowing. It's about someone not being able to suprise or tease me or that kinda crap." He let out a sigh. "And I do want to know who else is getting the magnus." That made him grin.  
  
He kept listening as his boss spoke. His hand slide along Hawker's thigh, moving in to grope at the heavy piece of artillery that is his boss's cock.  
  
 _"What do you think?"_  
  
"I think that you're a big bull who's going to score plenty of tail. And I'm your main squeeze. Really enjoy the thought honestly. I'm still a little upset about Wen, but I'll get over it." He admitted. "Not sure why, just.. fuck. Might be because I thought she is really sweet and the idea of you ruining her is just.. mmmpf. Hot."  
  
His fingers slid around the bulge, fingertips caressing the bell of Hawker's ten inch flaccid length. "THe best part had to be the look on her face. I bet it's like mine when you're pushing this into me."  
  
He squeezed, then began to stroke through the fabric. "I think we're cool now." His warm grip cupped the amble balls of his partner. "Heh. Anyone else around the station you've thought about having?"

 

* * *

 

 

_"I think that you're a big bull who's going to score plenty of tail. And I'm your main squeeze. Really enjoy the thought honestly. I'm still a little upset about Wen, but I'll get over it... Not sure why, just.. fuck. Might be because I thought she is really sweet and the idea of you ruining her is just.. mmmpf. Hot."_  
  
Hawker rumbled faintly as he felt the boy check the action on his barely concealed weapon - his pleasure centers fired up, and the heavy duty fabric around his fly began to tighten.  
  
 _"The best part had to be the look on her face. I bet it's like mine when you're pushing this into me."_  
  
"That girl was seeing stars," he chuckled, spreading his thighs further apart as Chris rubbed him down. "You can take a helluva lot more, though."  
  
 _"I think we're cool now. Heh. Anyone else around the station you've thought about having?"_  
  
"Mmm." He sat and enjoyed the sensation of that warm hand along his heavy balls for a second before turning to push Chris down on the bed. Hawker threw a leg across the human, kneeling above his chest. "Can't say I haven't thought about giving Cory the ol' matrial law treatment. Put somethin' that mouth of his when he won't shut up," he chuckled, undoing his pants, making sure to do it with a lot of touching himself. "And to be honest, our newest addition to the motor pool has a few hamster wheels turning..."  
  
His dick was just about ready to tear out of those boxers - the Magnus came with a jock, but he just hadn't had the time to flaunt it yet - when he slid those out of the way too, shoving both garments down his thighs as far as they would go. Hawker rested his hand cupping his own ball bag to frame the root of his still growing erection.  
  
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? To see your captain order another war machine to get on his hands and knees and open wide? Wouldn't mind ruining that pretty face of his and hearing him beg..."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris lay back easy, his smile wide as Hawker took the time to reveal that pillar between his thighs. Gods, did it fit him! Imposing, broad and oversized as the mech himself.  
  
 _ **Delicious!**_  
  
"Stop reading my mind, Boss! Fuck, just imagine doing this with Lance. I bet he'd pucker up like a good boy. Likes taking orders." Chris left his hands out of things for the moment. He soft face pushed up against the glans, neck straining as he licks and kissed over the tip.  
  
"And if you get Corey to open wide, I want the video. Let me get the collar on if there's time." Then he opens wide and takes the business end of the mangus past his lips. Warm and wet, tongue eagerly flicking as he suckles. Hawker knew his pilot, and the kind of dirty things he liked. After all, the ares wouldn't have a monster-sized dick if the rookie didn't want it!  
  
Slipping off with an autible POP, he brought his left hand up and stroked from tip to root. "Reminds me. Lance wanted to get the collar's frequency or something like that. Wanted to get a line on me I guess. I told 'im that I'd run it by you first. I"m okay with it but, well, up to you if he's allowed to share." His mouth turned into a smile as he let out a laugh. "Heh! If he can take it! We might blow his circuits."  
  
Hawker felt his boy shift, adjust, moving against his calves and knees. The happy look on his face as he busied himself pleasing the girth hanging before him. Chris turned into an obedient toy most times once the magnus came out to play.

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker thrust at the boy's face a little, trying to push past those wet lips. He'd fuck down into Chris' lungs if he could!  
  
Each little stroke of the human's tongue was like little bubbles of pleasure popping in his CPUs, and he was rock-hard in no time, sensor nodes and synthetic flesh growing and firming up between those lips. Christ, this is what he lived for. Well, this and guns.  
  
 _"Reminds me. Lance wanted to get the collar's frequency or something like that. Wanted to get a line on me I guess. I told 'im that I'd run it by you first. I"m okay with it but, well, up to you if he's allowed to share."_  
  
"Do it for the sake of the job," he said, reaching down to slide his fingers through Chris' hair. "But you're to get my explicit permission before transmitting  _anything_." He grabbed a lose fistful and gave it a gentle yank to the side, smirking. "Like our predilections, for one. Mouth." Chris obeyed. "Mm. You know, I was thinking earlier... I might be able to get us all into neurospace. That way he doesn't need to find out that the 9081 has the  _real deal_." He remembered that cock - the way it felt against Chris' small body, the way it felt to blow such a massive load - and he got just that much harder. Heat surged into the thick shaft and the whole thing jerked upwards like a bucking stallion. "He seems to like you, at any rate. And why not, when you can do this..." Hawker chuckled and licked his lips. "Maybe you can teach him a thing or two about pleasuring his superior, hm?" He cupped Chris' chin possessively, tilting his head this way and that, guiding him forward and back as he began rolling his hips forward.  
  
Actually, Hawker decided he wanted to be naked...

 

* * *

 

 

Chris winced as his hair is pulled. It hurt in a good way and he moved his head where guided. He enjoyed it when Hawker did this, all he had to do is obey and wonderful sexy things would happen.  
  
The view right now is a-maze-ing! Thick thighs in those BDUs, zipper down and the magnus pointed right as his face. Mmmpf!   
  
"Okay boss. I'll get on that tomorrow and keep the naughtiness to us. And I think He might enjoy the idea, ya know, pleasuring. Seems up his alley."  
  
Seeing Hawker beginning to strip, Chris joined in the fun. Gripping his shirt at the base, he hauled it up and tugged it over his head and flung it onto the floor. Shoes get kicked off and the pants follow. His boxer briefs prove a struggle and the mechanised dominant gets to enjoy the sight of his boy flexing and twisting to remove his cotton clothing. Finally it's the socks, which are flung far. Chris is rock-hard, and his left hand drops to start stroking himself from base to tip.  
  
"Mmmm. You stud." He stated, licking his lips as he soaked in the sight of his buff robotic boyfriend. "How do ya want me?"

 

* * *

 

 

Boots wound up on the floor next to Chris' - his could fit  _inside_  the ones that fit on the Ares' stompers.  
  
Pants. Belt. Boxers. One last swig of the slug.  
  
 _"Mmmm. You stud."_  
  
Hawker cocked a brow, standing rakishly before his boy, drinking in the sight of him too. Six months ago this was unthinkable. Being here - in a human-sized body, in his pilot's quarters, treated not like an armed warhead but as a member of the team. Being here with  _him_  - fuck's sake, he was a lucky machine. How had such a fine specimen of boy  _and_  pilot landed so neatly in his lap, fulfilling him in seemingly all of his functions as a mech?  
  
"I could stare at this view all day," Hawker countered with a happy snort, coming back in.   
  
 _"How do ya want me?"_  
  
"As you were, soldier," he smirked, backing Chris up against the wall and pushing him down to his knees, making sure to get a good smear of pre up his sternum as he went until the head of his monster was caressing that soft cheek. A pleasant jerk of pelvic servos and synthetic muscle milked a little more from down deep, and it burbled out in a translucent blob that caught the light. "Let me know if you get tired and I'll be more than happy to finish in your ass again, kiddo."

 

* * *

 

 

"Ya know, it's going to be amazingly fun when you get the vanguard chassis back." Chris stated, slinking back into postion where he could worship. Thankfully, the mattress saved his knees fromt he hard floor. He took a deep breath and began working on what is his favorite project: all of Hawker. THe thick head filled his mouth and pressed back over his tongue. It is when it began to tingle his gag reflex that there is a problem.  
  
Calming himself and fixating on just, how, MUCH there is left, he swallowed.   
  
Hawker felt the tightness of his pilot's throat, the way it squeezed and wriggled and how hard his boy tried. POP Into the constricting tightness, the hot velved of that tunnel, taking precidence over air.  
  
*Schlooorp*  
  
CHris coughed, pulling off and stroking the fourteen inch length with his right hand. He sucked in a rasping breath and the drool went down over his chin as it glistened in Hawker's yellow eyelights.  
  
"Heh, best part is we won't have to sneak about too. Can just close the door and have FUN! Fuck yeah." Then he went back for seconds.

 

* * *

 

 

_"Heh, best part is we won't have to sneak about too. Can just close the door and have FUN! Fuck yeah."_  
  
Chris' enthusiasm was contagious. His foreprocessors were filling up with image stacked on top of lecherous image. Then, a stab of chill air, and for a split-second the mech could have sworn he felt snowflakes on his chassis, thought he heard the sound of moans echoing down the halls, thought he smelled the sting of blood in the air - but before he knew it his mind was back in the motor pool, a small harem of eager humans crawling along his giant, supine form with Chris at the helm. Just a glitch.  
  
"Soon," Hawker rumbled, losing himself in the hot slickness of Chris's mouth. "We'll have it back soon enough..." He offlined his optics and played with the boy's hair some more. "Mmyeah, that's it, kid, suck your mech's thick cock..."


	29. Two Rooks, Two Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where things start to coming together.

Hawker had gone into recharge alongside Chris in his small bed, feet hanging off the mattress and touching the floor as usual. His internal clock read just after 0600 - it was time to get up and start another crazy fucking day. But he felt better about it. A little more confident that things weren't necessarily going to go to shit, and that Chris was still  _his_.  
  
Going by infrared, Hawker picked his way out of Chris' arms, put on his clothes, and headed out the door. He'd send his pilot a text at 0630 to get his adorable little ass out of bed.  
  
"Morning," he grunted at Leslie Wen when he passed her pouring a cuppa in the kitchenette, giving her a warm little wink.  
  
Wen was a blusher, that was for sure. She gave him a little smile back, and he caught her eyes dart down at the bulge in his pants before making eye contact with him again.  
  
"Don't worry, it's not going anywhere," the mech chuckled quietly. She blushed harder and giggled.  
  
"I just, um... I think about it a lot," she murmured, holding her mug with two hands. "And I think about how you didn't..."  
  
He gave her a self-assured smirk, and folded his arms to accentuate the bulk of his arms for her. The girl was practically at eye-level with his elbows. "You know where to find me."  
  
The glow in Wen's face faded a little and she chewed her lip. "He... knows, right? I hadn't... I mean I guess I-I just assumed that..."  
  
Hawker let his hand rest on her tiny shoulder. "We talked. It's kosher."  
  
She blushed right back up again, looking like she was about to explode. Instead she said nothing, and made a tiny little noise into her coffee.  
  
"Look, I gotta get going, alright? Apparently Colburn wants me to play  _chess_  with Soto," he laughed. "Should be interesting. And hey, if either she or that tech of theirs comes nosing around, try not to tell them too much."  
  
"Of course not," she said. "We gotta look out for each other around here!"  
  
Hawker snorted, squeezing her shoulder before letting go. "Yeah, well, tell that to Cory Becker. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was looking for a damn ticket out of here, the way he follows her around. Anyways." Another wink. "I'll see you around, kid."  
  
Her face lit up, though, and she rushed to shuffle down the hallway. "Wait, wait!" she hissed, trying not to make too much noise. A moment later, she returned with a... present? Hawker took the package; it was flat and floppy, wrapped in Christmas paper. "Late present. It didn't get here until last night."  
  
The mech felt a faint tingle of warmth churn through his power conduits as he regarded the young woman standing beside him. "Thank you," he said, a little surprise on his voice.  
  
"Open it!"  
  
He did so carefully, sliding his fingers under the meticulously taped ends before reaching in. It was fabric. Unfolded, it was a gray t-shirt with a cartoon of a beefy Saint Bernard character sprawled on a couch, and above it was the  _Big Dog_  logo. Hawker couldn't help another laugh when he checked the size of the shirt: 2XL.  
  
Wen smiled. "I remember you saying that you could use some more shirts, so..."  
  
"Well, case in point," Hawker said, gesturing to his bare torso. With that he pulled the shirt over his head, careful not to get his antennae stuck on the collar. It was tight in the shoulders, but otherwise fit well.  
  
She giggled. "You're going to wear that on duty?"  
  
"Damn right I am. Hell, maybe it'll be the icebreaker the lieutenant and I need." He stooped and gave her a small kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, Leslie. Remind me when your birthday is so I can return the favor... and that's an order." With that he headed off to the elevator. "Catch you around, kid."

 

* * *

 

 

Corey Becker measured out 20mg of ginko into his herbal tea. Two tablespoons of organic honey. The plastic spoon thumped rhythmically against the wax paper cup as he stirred. The soft rubber and leather padding of his piloting suit creaked against his muscles, and he smiled as he saw himself in a mirror. A handsome man grinned back.  
  
"Lookin' good B. Lookin' good."  
  
As he pulled down the drink he tried to calm his racing mind. Yesterday had been a bit of a shitshow with Hawker but Lance operated flawlessly. And thanks to a reshuffling of the schedule he is doing to the sim room with Lance today.  
  
Early.  
  
He'd wanted to meditate, maybe take a few days off in advance like he had before his last rating challenge when he'd moved from B to A class. That'd been extra hard and he just scraped by! He could still recall how he'd felt wrung out from the AI back then. Hawker wore him out too. Of course they fought to no end each time. The truth is that Hawker didn't WANT Corey at his helm.  
  
Hawker wanted a human he could control. And Chris is Hawker's bitch. That simply is the facts. If Corey wanted to really be a pilot, he'd have to be Lee. He had Lee's build. He had Lee's talent. Only thing he didn't have is the rank. And he'd get there one day.  
  
Tossing the cup into the bin, Becker walked out and down the stairs to the sim room.  
  
\--  
  
Chris grumbled as he showered. Hawker had blasted a load in both ends last night, and now the pilot ached. "Shoulda made you get a smaller dick." He mumbled.  
  
Thirty minutes later he is sitting down on the matts in the gym, stretching out his calves. Hw wore running shoes, shorts and a tank top. His sparring helmet and mouthguard rested on a nearby table.   
  
At 0805 Torres walked in with a grin on her face. "CELN! Hear you've been learning, good to see someone around the station can listen."  
  
"With a grunt Chris pulled himself to his feet, he reached for the leather head protector and checked it for grime. "I can't believe that got leaked. And it wasn't a fair fight, Soto wasn't trying."  
  
Torres laughed, hands on her hips. "You brawled with Big Nine and nearly ripped his head off! You two smacking each other around, hell yeah. You doing those blocks and punches just like I taught you."  
  
Chris half-grinned. "I think the next time we scrap will be a more reasonable fight. Of course I might be piloting Hawker then." He picked up the boxing tape and began to wrap up his left wrist. "WHatcha got planned for me today?"  
  
"Punching. We might get you in an exo-suit. I'm not quite sure yet, but you weren't fighting as good as you could. I can't fault you for fighting in a vanguard like you're still a shortstack."  
  
Chris emitted a grumble.  
  
"Hey! You ARE. Now, put on your gear and show me how much you hate this heavy-bag."  
  
Chris grunted, pulled back and let the bag have it.  
  
\--  
  
Chess is a waste of time. Soto rubbed the bridge of her nose as she looked over the board. Yesterday had been a waste of time. And downloading a few books worth of chess strategy is a waste of her on-board storage.  
  
Floor 28 recent had been renovated, the offices not yet assigned. She had arrived at 2828 and found the furniture still covered in plastic. SHe tapped her finger on the chessboard that had been given to her by Colburn. It wasn't special really, cardboard board, the pieces are red and black and cheap plastic. THe underside had the name 'davidson' written in sharpie.  
  
A sentimental item for an angry AI. Soto thought about that. How was this supposed to help?  
  
She began to put out the pieces when the elevator door chimed. Mechanical whirring, heavy footfalls.  
  
And then there is the fact that Hawker is still huge. Only now he could get damn near anywhere.

 

* * *

 

 

Urkan took a while to fall asleep the previous night as he mulled over what had happened in the sim - even after his nightcap. Lance had had a small handful of pilots during his deployment and operating history, and it seemed to him that the eighth Vanguard had acted out of the ordinary during that fight. He stared at the ceiling of his temporary quarters, remembering Celn kiss - _kiss!_  - his mech. After everyone bailed that morning, Urkan had dug up whatever he could find about the pair's unconventional relationship, only to find that Hawker seemed to have been a different machine before that kid came along too.  
  
And Celn wasn’t even his first S-class pilot - Davidson had been working with Hawker for almost a decade before the job claimed him. Records concerning his relationship with his previous pilot weren’t available to him, but Brendan Thule was forthcoming with his memories of the occasional disagreement, sometimes heated, like a parent getting into it with their teenager. But the two were attached at the hip and there was no question that the machine had more respect for Davidson than most other people combined. “And when they were synced, it was something else,” Thule had said. The Chief told me when she monitored their real-time status, it was like looking at a Mozart concerto. Brought her to tears the first time they reached 100%.”  
  
Urkan was remembering an old urban legend about a tier of pilots that sat  _above_  S-class. Sometimes they were called T-class, for ‘transhuman’, or E-class, for ‘exceptional’, or something else, depending on who you heard the story from, what government agency was secretly carrying out the research and all that tinhat stuff. It never made any sense to him, seeing as how machines that required redundant levels of compatibility didn’t even  _exist_. A paper had been published a few years back exploring the theoreticals of such ridiculous synchronization rates, and it had found that beyond what most metrics defined as 100% was a landscape of heavily diminishing returns. It required a tremendous amount of energy, and the number of humans who were potentially mentally fit for such psychological rigors were so small that it would be impossible to even find them. The paper wound up informing formal US policy on the matter. The Deep Field 3 system, which was still another 10 years away from release, wasn’t even being designed with chassis or pilots in mind. Mech tech had come out of a very specific need during a very specific time in the war - a time that was over. Nobody had any use for a  _super-duper-special_  class of pilot anymore.  
  
Still, the kid was odd, that was for sure. And maybe it was something in the water at precinct 42, but Urkan decided that he was going to do a little more digging, quite unsure of where it would take him. But hey, it was better than sitting and watching TV in his head all afternoon.  
  
\--  
  
Soto leveled her eyes at the Ares when he entered the room, unable to convey anything but sheer irritation. Honestly, from what she saw yesterday, the lieutenant was ready to call it quits, but... she had a job to do.  
  
"Didn't think you'd actually show up," she said plainly, leaning back in her chair as she watched the Ares push the one opposite of her out of the way to sit on the floor instead. "I’m gonna be straight with you, captain: my expectations are  _not_  high."  
  
Hawker eyed her for just a second before studying the board, hands on his knees. God, he was so human-like in this body, it was... well, at least it was beyond the uncanny valley. "Well mine are.”  
  
Virginia knit her brows together as he straightened the pieces on the board, anally making sure they were all facing the right direction. He seemed to be calmer, that was for sure. Was it the body that made him lose it yesterday, something about routing him through the broken 9081? No, she hadn’t sensed that at all. There would have been errors with that kind of malfunction. Surely, it had been nothing more than the temper-tantrum of an ego-driven AI.  
  
“You didn’t learn a damn thing from yesterday, did you?” she suggested with a snort. He motioned at her with his palm up and she made her first move to E4. This was going to be a very long hour.  
  
“I learned a lot more than you’re prepared to give me credit for.” Pawn to C5. “I learned that you’re more than happy to sit back and put up your feet if you don’t feel like you have a horse in the race, for one.”  
  
Knight to F3. What the hell was that supposed to mean? “I don’t do lazy, captain,” she said acerbically, making sure he knew what she thought of that idea.  
  
Hawker moved his knight to C6 instead of the usual pawn to D6. Interesting. She had assumed he was going to play a fairly safe game with his defense, but she realized that he might try throwing her for a loop.   
  
“No, you do efficient,” he said, flicking those yellow eyes at her for a moment before studying the board again.  
  
She studied  _him_  for a moment. Was that a complement or passive aggression?  
  
“We both do.”  
  
He  _was_  being candid, then. Her eyes fell back to the board and she frowned, suddenly not feeling so sure in her opening. She was committed, though, and moved a second, sacrificial pawn to D4, hoping to rely on the Open Sicilian’s aggression to take this game. “Then we have something in common, captain.” Maybe the banter would help to distract him as well.  
  
“We have a lot of things in common,” he rumbled. Pawn to... G6? Ah, for his bishop. He wasn’t interested in taking her bait. “But I think the problem is that our efficiencies are at cross-purposes.”  
  
“That much is obvious.” Knight to C3.  
  
Hawker moved his bishop to G7, just as she expected.  
  
She moved her bishop to C4. Right up in his face.  
  
Pawn to D6, finally. “You’re military, you’re used to playing the long game,” he said. “Unless you’re a detective or prosecutor, that’s not the way things are done around here.”  
  
She surveyed the pieces for a few minutes, realizing that she’d gone off the beaten track of the Sicilian, cursing in her head. Sure, scabs could download entire books into their brains, but integrating the information as thought you actually  _learned_  something was a skill that took a lifetime to master. It was the difference between rote memorization and true cunning. Bishop to E3.  
  
“There’s no war, here, lieutenant. Only fighting.” Bishop to... G4? Was he trying to box her in and retake the middle? Surely, he was gunning for her knight. So she moved it safely out of the way.  
  
“Unconventionality is rewarded,” he continued, “Because we don’t protect abstractions and ideals here, we protect real people, and real things.” He pinched his rook carefully between two fingers and performing a move that looked  _completely_  illegal. He jumped over his king, then pushed it over one square with the rook piece before setting it down.  
  
“That’s not unconventional, that’s  _rulebreaking_ ,” she said, indignant. Hawker couldn’t even take  _this_  seriously, could he? Couldn’t tolerate losing a stupid game!  
  
“It’s called castling,” he said, cocking his head at her. “Look it up.”  
  
She did. Eyes darted around as she dug around through her downloads, searching the implanted data for something about this. Eventually she “remembered” a section from one of the materials, the official rulebook published by the  _World Chess Federation_. Scanning it, it was quickly made obvious to her that he had executed a legal move, the only one of its kind in the game.  
  
Blinking, Soto exhaled sharply and focused back on the board, wondering if doing such would benefit her at this point. She didn’t think so... and she didn’t want to look like a copycat.  
  
“We protect people too,” she said. Bishop to G5. She’d lost her strategy. “I thought Davidson, being an ex-marine, would have grilled that into you.”  
  
The mech looked her straight in the eye. “If he had died in Siberia under commander Mayweather, what impact would that have had on operations?”  
  
Soto didn’t understand the purpose of his line of questioning. “He would have been given a proper funeral, honored for his service, and life would have gone on. Just like it did here.”  
  
His face told her nothing. It wasn’t hard, but it was stern, and his optics were penetrating. Still waters sure did run deep, as the colonel liked to say. He looked at her her for an uncomfortably long few seconds before flicking his golden yellow apertures back down at the board and silently captured her queen with his bishop. “Except that’s not what happened here,” he said quietly, putting the piece to the side.  
  
Soto couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen that coming. She cursed in her head, rubbed her chin with her hand. Should she take the bishop as payback? She wasn’t in check, it couldn’t do anything else now but take out a pawn. Knight to D5. No more messing around.  
  
Queen to A5. “Check,” the mech quietly declared. Something in the way he said it, the way that deep, would-be commanding voice formed the single-syllable word made her want to fight. “Eight-hundred people work here at 42. One out of eight-hundred for you is a statistic. For us, it’s a goddamn tragedy.” They locked eyes again. “Move your king, lieutenant.”  
  
She took his bishop after all.  
  
He took his remaining bishop and captured her pawn at D4. Dammit. She’d chosen to move her king to take his piece; there was no way for her to castle it now. In fact, she spent the next 5 minutes considering her options, which were suddenly few. He left her with no way to advance - with a scowl she moved her bishop a single, pathetic space backwards.  
  
Without hesitation Hawker took the pawn behind it, pinning her king to the spot. The only reasonable thing she could see to do was to call in for backup to scare him off. Rook to A2.  
  
He moved his knight to D4. Shit! She had to make a choice - sacrifice her bishop, or let his continue to menace her king. Again, he left her with no choice.   
  
Rook to B2. Queen to C3.  
  
Soto was sweating bullets now. She was beginning to realize that this maybe wasn’t her game - there was no tactical retreating, no allies or airstrikes to call, no superior officer to defer to here. It was just her, her wits, her knowledge of the assets she had at hand, and her will to survive. Every loss single counted here.   
  
King to A3. It was her only move.  
  
Knight to E2. Fuck. “Check,” the captain said again.  
  
She moved it behind her rook. His queen still had her pinned.  
  
Pawn to C4, poised to take her bishop. She attempted to distract him by threatening his knight. No such luck - he captured it with his queen, dealing even more damage than she first anticipated.  
  
“Checkmate.”  
  
“Fuckin’ eh,” she muttered, running her fingers through her hair. How had he done that? She’d studied the classic opening moves, their variations, recognized his defense. The castling hadn’t been tactically meaningful, it just threw her off.   
  
“They don’t encourage improvisation in your world, especially not at your rank,” he said, carefully arranging the pieces again to their starting positions. She watched his hands, enormous, powerful, elegantly designed, move with such graceful precision, as though they were just gloves and a man’s hands were really inside of them. “We improvise every day. Each situation is different. Each crime. Each criminal. Each neighborhood. Each fight.”  
  
Soto sat back in her seat again thinking. “Why didn’t I get this Hawker yesterday?”  
  
He cocked a brow at her. “Frankly, you hadn’t earned him.”  
  
Typical answer, she was beginning to recognize that much. A scoff. “So you’re trying to tell me that I’m efficient at what - going by the rulebook? Obeying orders? Trusting the system? Not  _renegade_ enough for 42?”  
  
“You’re efficient at piloting Lance, and I’m efficient at being piloted by Celn. What I need you to understand is that I am not the 8041, and this isn’t Elmendorf. I have more autonomy than your machine would ever know what to do with, and you need to respect that.”  
  
Soto shook her head, chuckling bitterly. “Then what the hell do you even have a pilot for, captain?”  
  
“I asked myself that a lot after Davidson died.” He gestured to the board. “Your move.”

 

* * *

 

 

Urkan's mind is not on his current task. He went through the motions and had the Sim Chair ready to go. Down in the motor pool Lance again rested in the office connected into the station. An office! There is a mech-sized chair and a mech-sized desk complete with elevator for humans. Entering that place made him feel like become a toddler again. Lance appeared to enjoy the vanguard-sized accommodations. He dialed in the settings for an A-class and relaxed and checked his email for the seventh time that morning.  
  
Precinct 42's medical staff is annoyingly tight-lipped. Personal records are sealed beyond incident information. And worse yet, the medical android are veterans. Modeled after the mental scans of the best doctors with a neural interface ports, they had served across the various branches before being retired. Colburn's predecessor had picked them up in the fire-sale that'd followed the war's end and they'd been pulled together to form a crack squad. What kind of police station had three robotic neurosurgeons who are surely about treating 'just' compound fractures? Worse yet, when not busy they had some sort of gestalt mind that notoriously haunted WebMD and edited medical journals.  
  
In short, no amount of military bluster would get them to spark a watt in his direction. But rousing their curiosity? That'd worked a treat. Urkan isn't wet behind his ears, he told them that he wanted to know what made Celn different. What'd pushed an ordinary kid with a standard implant to levels of interface like that?  
  
They'd been eager to talk once he'd handed over the data from the first day. They wanted Becker's data too, and Soto's. Then they would do a full analysis with properly anal precision. Get some, "Perspective on anomalous behavior." as the choral tones had spoken. Good enough for an Air Force tech, and they might even write the report for him.  
  
And then Corey Becker pushed the door in with a smile on his face. Urkan stood up a little straighter, annoyed about the fact that  _anyone_  could look that good in a skin-tight suit.  
  
\--  
  
"Technical Specialist Urkan! Looking good man. I'm ready, you ready?" Becker had a mild perspiration working it's way down his back, the energy drink and supplements pushing his body into high gear.  
  
The two did a fist bump, over-under with a shimmy.  
  
"Yes." The barf bucket and towel sat ready along with water. "Just you and Lance today. After yesterday's disaster I think the brakes have been put on. Not that everyone is happy about that." Urkan's right hand folded and retracted, leaving his stump bare before a data probe emerged. He plugged in and gestured for Corey to sit down.  
  
Urkan had been at Elmendorf for two and a half long years after his hands had gone. He still had two more to go before his stint was done. Lance always is the model Air Force man. Calm, intelligent, knowledgeable and listens to his superiors and respectfully disagree when he thought he had a better idea. Last night Lance had been petulant when he learned it'd be a few days before Celn would be in the sim. Not in the meeting of course, but afterword. He'd just sat down and sulked. Urkcan replay the memory in his head.  
  
_"Hey, cheer up. You'll see him plenty more. What did 102% feel like?"  
Silence, arms crossed, Lance looked aside when he answered. "It felt good."  
"Like beating Hawker good?"  
"no." sullent, still avoiding eye contact.  
"No? That all you got for me L3?" THe nickname is part jest, part fact. Lance the Large Lancer.  
"Look I.." the mech let out a sigh, fingers touching it's forehead. "I should prepare for Becker."  
"I'm here if you need to talk."  
"I need-!" came an honest, angry biting tone to the normally compliant voice. Lance actually speaking out like that is rare enough Urkan could only recall it happening during a crisis. "I need to prepare for tomorrow. Please excuse me."_  
  
\--  
The simulation swirled and melted the sim room away. Cautiously, Becker opened his eyes.  
  
He stood on firm, warm cement. Around him are the endless plains of the American midwest. It's an airfield and the blue sky doesn't have a single cloud in it. He turned his head and the background of the Rocky Mountains are set piece for an airstrip. And in front of him is all 14' 9" of Lancer, The 8041. The sun gleamed off the machine's chrome and Lance gave him a wave and a polite smile. "Trooper Becker." came the rumbling greeting.  
  
"Hello 8041, Lancer." Lance's friendly demeanor did not do anything to blunt the overwhelming PRESENCE of the Deep Field 2 AI. Lance is a pool of grey ocean water and Corey felt himself exerting willpower to stay upright.  
  
They stood at 88%, stable and calm. Then Lance stopped trying, stopped attempting to push for more that Becker isn't giving back. Virginia gave him low to mid nineties with regularity. Chris had pegged the sim chair synchronization, literal hardware limitation! High eighties is acceptable, he just needed to adjust for it. And he did.  
  
THe deep water calmed and the tension and heart rate of the pilot eased off. He still swam, but it is manageable now. Becker felt better now than he ever had with Hawker. Lance is the better AI, for sure. "Woah! That's.. that's a neat trick. You should teach it to the 9081. Are you ready?"  
  
Lance nodded his assent. Setting himself up for an 85% run, he opened his hatches with clam regularity. Becker felt competent and solid. A reasonable and inexperienced vanguard pilot. Lance knew how to treat such a person.  
  
Corey mounted the mech with ease, and within the simulation the pilot chair actually fit! He wasn't crumpled up like an old beer can! "Right, let's get to work!"  
  
\--  
  
Lance exhaled a long sigh in the office, mentally distancing his disappointment. There is nothing wrong with Becker other than the attitude. But Corey felt ordinary. And ordinary isn't what his processors wanted to chew on today. But it'd have to do. He didn't have any other options, so he'd better make the most of things.

 

* * *

 

 

What had changed? Well, the sex had helped, for one. Being able to tear into Chris after working out some of their issues had been the liquid catharsis he needed - dumping a  _different_  sort of cache so far up the kid's ass that he'd be having it for breakfast this morning.  
  
But really? His old tricks weren't quite cutting it anymore, and the writing was on the wall. There were things he could get away with when he was the Vanguard, physically incapable of being part of people's lives, able to participate in only the smallest acts of social bonding. The enormity of being able to set foot in a restaurant in his own body wasn't lost on him, neither was the enormity of having  _wanted_  to. The trajectory he was on was one of domestication, no doubt. The Hawker of 6 months ago would have been disgusted at the idea, but now? Wearing clothes, going to parties, waking up in the same bed as his boy after a night of sex - real, circuit-shorting,  _consensual_  sex - was the new normal.   
  
Hawker was beginning to realize that he had, for the first time, something that could be called a  _life_.  
  
So when he came up here this morning, the mech was feeling receptive. He wanted to start over. Thankfully, Soto seemed to be of the same mind... even though her chess plays were still a little messy. Colburn was right, though: Hawker was getting a fair glimpse into how her mind worked. She approached things with cool confidence, always trying to play by the book. Her strength came from deferment to authority -  _perceived_  authority - which allowed her a sense of surety and nonchalance even when it was obvious her tactics weren't working. According to her training, there was almost always something to fall back on: a senior officer, a protocol, a bigger gun. But on the street, with fewer moving parts, fewer faceless boots to soak up the lead, it was often winner-take-all.   
  
Still, Hawker was coming to discover that she and Lance  _did_  have things to offer as well, things he could respect. Order, patience... and he supposed that there was something to the long view. Being trained for firefights and damage control sometimes gave you a little tunnel vision, he admitted to himself.  
  
"So where did Celn come from, exactly? My tech is trying to figure him out," Soto said, completing her Nimzo defense.  
  
"I don't know much more than you do, to be honest. He doesn't exactly like talking about his time in the system or on the street. Can't blame him. The slums around here are world-class."  
  
"Guess that'll happen when you soak up 70 million refugees from the eastern seaboard after the Sinos turned it into one big superfund site," she snorted.  
  
Hawker castled again, protecting his king behind his short-side line of pawns and moving his rook into a more active position.  
  
"You really like doing that, don't you?" she said, cocking a brow at him.  
  
"Makes me feel like I'm good at this game," he said with a laugh. Then he shrugged, deciding on something a little more poignant. "I guess I play like a mech. I see the king as my pilot."  
  
"So you're the rook, then? I mean, it moves like you, kinda looks like you too."  
  
He raised his brow plates at her and smirked. "Nah, I'm the whole board. The rook is just my hittin' arm."  
  
She had him on the ropes, though, with a captured bishop and midboard dominance. A few quick moves later and she'd forced him to break out his queen, and Hawker was feeling the pressure.  
  
"Do you miss the 9081?" she asked. "The Vanguard chassis is all Lance has ever known... but at the same time, can an AI feel more at home in one than the other?"  
  
He saw an opening to go after her queen, putting his spare rook into position. He caught her curse under her breath, study the board for a minute, and respond by sending it all the way from B1 to F5. A risky move. "Yes," was all he said. Hawker didn't know how to talk about it still, convinced that words cheapened the experience. Sure, she was an A-class pilot, but she was still  _human_. She wouldn't understand what it felt like to be homesick for a body.  
  
"You're very different from Lance," she murmured, the blandness of the statement betraying something a little deeper. "If you count that one time we had the 6061, the Marauder, on-base for 48 hours, then I've met three Vanguards. And you seem to be pretty unique."  
  
Hawker bristled inside. "I'm the only one who doesn't remember the war."  
  
Soto swallowed. "You had your memory wiped, right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She just nodded, and the two stared at the game for a while before the timer on her phone began to go off.  
  
"I think it's a draw," she said. "Look." She pointed at the position of Hawker's rook, and the position of her king. He would pursue her, and the rules dictated that she move her king out of check every time he did, creating a no-win situation.  
  
He cracked a smile and rose from the table. "So much for two out of three," he said, holding out his hand.  
  
She did the same, and took it. "Well, same time tomorrow, whether we want to or not."  
  
He started for the door, and she followed. They were headed to the same place anyways, might as well walk there together, he supposed.   
  
"So you and Celn, uh... how does that work?" OK, maybe he put her at ease a little  _too_  much if she was going to get chummy like this...  
  
"It just does," he said bluntly.   
  
"Why not another AI?"  
  
Huh. At least he couldn't say she asked  _boring_  questions... "I get along with humans a lot more. Simpler AIs frustrate the hell out of me, to be honest. You wouldn't date a freshman in college, would you?"  
  
She shook her head. "No, I suppose not."  
  
Hawker hit the button for the elevator, hands in his pockets.  
  
"But why Celn, though?"  
  
A curt shrug. "He's... special."  
  
"That's what I keep hearing." He shot her a look out of the corner of his optics as the doors opened. She stepped inside. "Birds of a feather, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, suddenly feeling like the probing questions had a purpose other than mere curiosity.

 

* * *

 

 

"Lance, you are nothing short of amazing!" Came Becker's jubilant cry as they completed the obstacle course. The Lancer is everything he'd been wanting from Hawker, a reasonable AI who accentuated his own movement and abilities. He still had trouble with things like balance and movement however. They'd fallen down twice and he'd completely skunked the tire-run, but at least he could get moving in the first place. "We've done more in ten minutes then the whole time I've been with Hawker."  
  
Lance is good, damn good at his job. And right now that job is separating his real feelings from the simulation that Corey is experiencing. He sat in Hawker's chair, arms on the desk as the thick cables ran from his communication ports into the wall. The desk is a misnomer, it's a steel plated concrete arch. THe car is a similar construction, but they gave the illusion of comfort. The appearance of civility. And he was the facade of complacency. "Thank you Mr Becker. You are doing reasonably well for your first time in a vanguard. I do appreciate your knowledge of my systems."  
  
That part was true. Chris is worryingly ignorant. He hoped that the rookie pilot would take some of his off time today to study. Lance wanted him more prepared during their next session.  
  
"Is that a good time?" asked Becker, indicating the 3:91:23 on the course clock.   
  
"Average." Lance spoke, feeling a touch numb from the lack of feedback. "Let me see how you do with dexterity."  
  
Large arrows appeared, indicating where they should move to. Corey walked slowly, placing each foot down with care. He had a tendency to hold the arms outward, hands palm down as if he were navigating a tightrope. <Natural athletes. Put them in someone else's shoes and they trip over themselves.> Thought Lance. "You will need time to get used to a new body. I would suggest working in a virtual Vanguard. It will aid you in the transition." he advised.  
  
"Yeah.. it's hard to do this. I can kinda feel you but I can't.. can't get the hang of this right away. Wish I felt your feet and hands as mine." admitted Corey.  
  
"Why do you want that?" Lance probed.  
  
Becker stopped walking, drawing the vanguard upright. "Because that's how I am supposed to pilot a mech?" He could walk or carry on a conversation, not both right now.  
  
Lance took a long three second look over Corey's well-documented piloting experience. "I see. Most of your time has been spent with dumb AIs. Supplemental intelligence. Hawker and I are the opposite. We are intelligent.  **You**  are the supplement. You share this body. You share the mind. You provide context. WE walk."  
  
Then a very terrifying thing happened. Lance stepped forward on his own, and COrey swore it is his own legs moving on their own. Until now he'd been a backseat driver, just like one of the APC AIs. It happened again. They took another step. A confident one. If they were two humans, a taller and stronger person had just stepped up behind him and pressed uncomfortably close. Only it is all in his mind!  
  
\--  
  
Outside at the chair, the pair had been operating at a steady 85% sync. Urkan adjusted the feed slightly and checked the data recorder again. All is well. After yesterday it seemed boringly mundane, but perhaps mundane is at least easier to write up in a report. Then the synchronization began to dial up. 85.5, 86, 87, 88 percent. Corey's vitals and brain activity pushed up a peg. "Looks like the Chef's turned up the heat! Can ya stay in the kitchen officer?" Urkan smirked. Now THIS is more what he was expecting.   
  
Frankly, Lance and Celn had done nothing short but preform above any expectation. They'd hit dataflow limits and Urkan still had another ten minutes of readings to painstakingly examine before the detail level the brass had asked for would be met. What is happening now is what they'd thought would happen. A cocky cop who is going to sweat it out in the hot seat. "Might have to pull you out.. in a little bit. See if ya tap out first."  
  
\--  
  
Lance is still there! With each step, every movement the AI is breathing down his neck like Preston on the firing range. Now Corey could feel the way the Vanguard's fingers pressed up against a watermelon.   
  
"Carefully." Lance's lips up against his ear.  
  
SQUIRT! Sticky red wetness and green rind coated his hand. It felt damn real. Realer then the way the piloting press around him. Why is this so hard?  
  
"Want me to do it?" Corey felt Lance smile.  
  
"Fine."  
  
Damned creepy, his own hand reaching out. Fingers gently caressing the melon, touching the surface before grasping it like a grape. Lance rolled it into their palm, then tossed it from right hand to left hand and caught it! Before setting the melon back down on the concrete amid the ruins of the previous 'victims.'  
  
"Not terrible. You at least managed to put our hand on it without making a mess. Let's do some shooting to round out the hour. Hawker might prefer his battle rifle, but I snipe."   
  
Hawker's weaponry is often jokingly compared to field artillery. What appeared in their hands IS field artillery. 155mm, able to be used standing or in position, it's literal artillery modified to be used as a sniper rifle by a mech. SOmehow, it felt heavy in his hands. He's in a mech, why is it heavy?   
  
"You need to let go of that control, Mr Becker. It's heavy because you need to trust me to do my job. And it will make your shoulder ache. Let's start with some close targets, three miles out."  
  
Next to them appeared an ordinance truck, holding the massive rounds for their weapon. A passable representation of the Air Force weapon expert, his name escaped Becker, waved tot hem looking quite small. Chambering the round, Corey grunted as he brought the rifle into position. Lance's miriad sensor arrays helped to calculate wind, gravity and distance. The Lancer didn't even seem to be aiming on target.  
  
"Where is the target, Mr Becker?" Lance whispered.  
  
88.2%  
  
"I.. I can't see it."  
  
88.4%  
  
"Look again."  
  
88.7%  
  
"It's.. I feel.. that?" COrey indicted a point on the horizon. It was like Lance is purposely refusing to compile the data for him.  
  
88.6%  
  
"Do you trust me to tell you?"  
  
Did he? Did he really?   
  
89.1%  
  
"I.. I don't.." Corey braced for reprisal.  
  
89.3%  
  
"Good. I didn't tell you where it is. You saw that. You also can't see the target without me. Now I will tell you where it is, and you will trust my judgement."  
  
90.01%  
  
Something snapped in Corey Becker's mind. Something, somewhere fell into place and a self-imposed barrier dropped. They lifted their rifle. They pulled the trigger. They lowered the smoking barrel and waited.  
  
The mark on the horizon disappeared with a plume of smoke.  
  
"Holy shit!" breathed Becker.  
  
"Good. Now do it again. 4 miles to the south."  
  
90.02%   
  
\--  
  
Urkan watched as another tremor passed through Becker's handsome body. His hands are clenched into tight fists. "Who knew you had it in ya?" He sent off a message to Lance, <Becker's vitals are rough. I give him eight minutes tops. Better keep doing what you're doing."

 

* * *

 

 

After exchanging a few more words of casual conversation, Soto left him down in the motor pool to go back and see what was happening in the training room with Becker. She left an odd taste in his mouth, but by the end he wasn't sure if it wasn't just because he'd spent too many years around police.  
  
The Chief was up on the gantry with her crew, working away at the 9081 again, when he walked up. They were making good progress this morning.  
  
"Why does it feel like you've gotten more done on this thing since the zoombags showed up than in the past month combined?" he asked with a chuckle, nodding at the brand new limb being held in position by a hoist as a pair of techs were working on the connections. Each of them was frowning in intense concentration behind their mask and goggles, and hadn't even heard his sarcasm. Attaching the moving parts alone was a 16-hour job, and the wiring would be another 10 - that didn't even count troubleshooting or software. They were looking at some decent overtime.  
  
Colburn gave her datapad a smug look as she tapped away at it. "Somebody sounds a little jealous," she lilted.  
  
He reached out with the Ares' comm system and shoved a nice photo of someone flipping the bird right onto the screen of her tablet as he stepped up onto the slab. He hadn't pulled that trick in a long time.  
  
"Very mature, captain," she said, nonplussed, and swiped it out of the way. "Believe it or not, we're working as fast as we can. It's not like Elmendorf  _wants_  us to keep their Vanguard, what with how close to Siberia they are."  
  
Hawker folded his arms, stepping closer to the action to see what they were doing. Ah, yes, he recognized what they were installing right away: one of six gaskets on the manifold that fed into a secondary power plant located deep in the upper arm. Those robust units, plus the extra strength of his package's joints, bearings, and impact dampeners, gave him a full 2800 ft/lbs more strength in each limb than the second-strongest Vanguard. The 9081 had six engines - one for each limb and two for his systems as a whole - while the 8041 had four. Lance's arms had to share one. Hawker bit back a smile at remembering Lee telling him about the sim demo he had tried before taking on the job at 42 - apparently in-sim he'd figured out that it was possible to shear the wings off an old F-15 without ripping off your arms if you threw your weight just right. When Hawker had asked who the hell programmed a Tomcat into their database, the man had just smirked and shrugged.   
  
"Things are gonna get back to normal before you know it," he said, straightening up and moving towards her. "Not sure about Becker, though. I think Soto might adopt him." He looked up at the small viewing window to the training room set high in one of the walls of the motor pool. He could see just the top of Thule's head from down there.  
  
Colburn put a wiry hand on his shoulder and looked up at him with sharp, but warm eyes. "I'm stopping for lunch at 1, come see me in my office." He eyed her. "Kole's been working a deal with the commissioner for you. It's good news, promise."  
  
Well that piqued his interest - in fact, he had a good idea of what she was going to tell him, but he didn't want to ruin the surprise for himself. "1300 it is," he said with a little smile, stepping off the gantry and heading over to his old office. But not before grabbing a few cables first.  
  
\--  
  
_Guy looks like he owns the place,_  Hawker said as he strode in unannounced, and invited himself up onto his old desk. Christ, it was a weird-ass feeling, being so small next to a nearly identical mech!  
  
With a hard vent, he silently repeated his little mantra from earlier:  _Things are gonna get back to normal before you know it._  Normal... but better.  
  
Lance's optics were off, but it would have been amateurish to assume that the gray Vanguard hadn't noticed him there. Still, this was Hawker's space, and the mech unit was his responsibility, so he popped the cover on his cranial access ports and got to work plugging himself in. The 8041 pinged him, sending a wordless electronic little question mark of data as the smaller mech threaded in the thickest of the three cables he was going to need, and plugging it into another panel in the side of his old terminal.  
  
"Just observing," he said, sticking another jack in to the back of his head. "Pretend I'm not even here."  
  
At the mating of the third, the server system opened up to him. He punched in his credentials, navigated the complex machinations of information until he found the "door" he was looking for. Without knocking, his consciousness stepped in and he was greeted by the same training sim as before. Except this time, the ground was covered in smashed watermelons.  
  
<Practicing your Gallagher tribute sketch?> Hawker's electronic presence sent to Lance.  
  
<They're just training props, captain,> the air force mech answered. Hawker watched as he lifted the 16-foot sniping gun - actually a modified M810 - listened as he coached Becker for a moment, and then fired at a target due east. Hawker focused his omniscient attention accordingly, and saw that they'd been aiming at the facsimile of a humvee that was now little more than a smoldering crater.  
  
<You're letting him use the  _Howitzer_? > he chuckled, taking his time going through their numbers. <Well I'll be damned, 90.1%. Not bad, sergeant.>  
  
<We're almost done. He needs a break or we risk overloading his implant.>  
  
<Like I said, don't mind me.>  
  
<Morning, Hawker,> came Urkan's unique comm signature from inside the training room. Another disembodied voyeur. <I take it your game with the lieutenant went well?>  
  
Lance was busy speaking with Becker, who Hawker could tell was ready to tap out. Invisible fingers could feel the man's pulse, his sweat, his slowly muddying thoughts. Still, their compatibility held, and it wouldn't take long for Corey to recover from this session.  
  
<It did. Hashed a few things out,  _mano-a-mano_. > A chuckle. <We might even be ready for a retrial before new year's.>  
  
The mech tried to stay aware of his emotions, as he could sense something rising in him at what was going on - Becker cooperating with another Vanguard. What was the matter? He wasn't quite sure, but he tried to channel Lee. A 'WWDD?'. Outside, he vented a burst of hot air, and shielded his thoughts.  _Being reactionary won't get you anything you fucking want, Nine,_  he told himself. Not Lee's words, but the sentiment was close: that the best defense was a good offense. Or in this case, living well was the best way forward. But he was just getting his bearings on what that meant, and moreover, figuring out what he  _wanted_.  
  
_What the fuck do you **want** , you idiot?_  
  
Becker was out of the sim then, sucked back into his chair upstairs, leaving just him and Lance in the bland, balmy simscape.  
  
<You said you wanted to talk to me, sir?> Lance sent after a few minutes of silence between them.  
  
<I did.>  
  
Hawker appeared then, again in his old familiar chassis, phasing into existence beside the slightly smaller, and much lighter mech. The ordnance truck was still there, and Lance was still holding the M810B6, affectionately known as the 'Little Tom'.  
  
"Let me try," he said with his mouth, and Lance handed him the weapon. It was enormous, just the way he liked his guns, but operating out of a city meant that something like this would  _never_  make it into his arsenal. With palpable relish he chambered a round, hefting it up onto his thick shoulder.  
  
Lance emanated confusion. "You're pilotless," he pointed out as Hawker took aim, using his own array of sensors to calculate for a target 3 miles off. It seemed a dumb thing to comment on - dumb even for the Lancer - so Hawker just grunted and continued focusing on the task at hand.  
  
_**KA-BOOM!**_  
  
It, too, disappeared into a cloud of black smoke. Hawker lowered the weapon, a smirk on his face. "I've still got it," he said with some satisfaction, and the whole ensemble disappeared into the ether, leaving just the two mechs standing on an empty concrete pad. "Now, about that talk."  
  
Lance looked shocked, however. Or at least, as shocked as someone like him could be. "You fired the weapon pilotless," he said.  
  
"Yeah, and? I do it in-sim all the time."  
  
The air force mech's brow plates raised skyward, but his mouth remained in a tight line for a moment. He looked at the 9081 as though he'd sprouted a second head. "I can't do that," he said quietly.  
  
"I mean, I never would topside under normal conditions. It's against -"  
  
"No, I meant that I am  _physically_  incapable of pulling a trigger on my own."  
  
Hawker stood still and silent for a moment, eyeing the other Vanguard.  
  
Fuck, really?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the handful of you who've stuck with us so far, you're lovely and make writing this story even more fun than it already is. Hope you've enjoyed the ride~


	30. Three Millimeters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where team Elmendorf starts asking questions, and Hawker gets a uniform.

Corey's shaking hands held onto the white plastic pail. THe contents are some rather expensive herbal supplements and what's left of his breakfast. Another lurch and he horfed another blast of semi-digested food into the barf bucket.  
  
Beside him stood Urkan, the tech's hands back to black metallic digits. One one the broad pilot's back, the other offering a towel. "Get it all out. You'll feel better."  
  
A few minutes later, Becker swapped the bucket for the towel and lay down on the floor. Urkan wasn't being an ass to him at least, he sat down a bottle of water and watched over the shaking cop.  
  
"I'd say this is one part herbal goodness and three parts stress. You did decent, didn't flake out or tab out. Had about forty minutes, hit a high of 90.12%."   
  
Becker coughed and Urkan slid the sloshing vomit pail over, COrey waved him off. "90 percent? Over Ninety?" He took the bucket and spat into it before wiping his mouth. "Really?" His hopeful look didn't match his rolling stomach.  
  
"That you first time making it up into the big pilot league? Don't sweat it. Lance knows what he's doing."  
  
"Hell yeah he does! That was amazing, how we like, we one! I felt.." Corey shut his eyes and lay back on the floor and sprawled out. "..I feel sick. Fuck. My head hurts.."  
  
"Take it easy Trooper. You've got days before you're back in there." Urkan's boots creaked as the Air force man went about his business. "Breathe deep."  
  
\--  
  
"Hold still Celn. Stop wincing."  
  
Torres applied a second steri-strip to the cut above the rookie's left eye.   
  
"It hurts-- stings."  
  
"It's your sweat going into the wound. Now sit there and drink up." Torres gathered up the first aid supplies and stalked off. After punching for thirty minutes Chris's arms were full of lead, and he wasn't blocking as good as he should be. Which is why she'd manage to score a good blow and ring his bell. This is harder then it should be.  
  
'This' being Chris's training. He listened, replicated, did his best to keep up. But she could see the exhaustion in him even at eight in the morning. They are pushing the kid and he might crack at some point. Maybe that's what they wanted, to see him crack. FInd the limits on their pilot. And that is the other problem.  
  
Hawker. Seven feet of ass-kicking machine that usually loomed around it's pilot protectively. She didn't just what the captain would consider acceptable training injury, but a kick hard enough to Celn's noggin had him unstable on his feet. Fark. He'd been doing so well until then! And 42 kind of needed that head in working order, unless they wanted Becker rolling around in Big Nine.   
  
"Allright." Chris wiped his nose and slowly rolled his head around on his shoulders. "How about footwork? My arms are useless." He stood up, finishing off the protein shake before re-inserting the mouthguard.  
  
"That'll do." SHe wiped her hands to shake off the talc powder and grinned. At least he wasn't whining and nipping off to medical! "I'm going to lunge and I want you to dodge and weave."  
  
"yeah. Not gettin' whacked is good."  
  
\--  
  
Virginia Soto sat down heavily in her temporary office chair. THe gas piston hissed in protested before pushing her back up. She reached for the interface plug and jacked into her tablet, unlocking it and filing her encounter on Hawker.   
  
'Annoyingly, Hawker approached me as a reasonable and rational individual person today. Perhaps it is the chassis or the human environment, but he acted like a marine captain instead of a crazed drill sergeant. He's good at chess too.'  
  
'Overall, I'm going to give him another chance. Keep him away from Lance in the sim for now, I need to establish more basic communication with him. A few more days of human contact and he might relax enough to let me pilot him.' she paused and added more.  
  
'That really is it. He allows himself to be piloted, it's an insult to his ego. Lance follows orders. Hawker expects to be obeyed. He'll need to understand why he should listen to me. Today is a step towards that. A small one.'  
  
Personal Note: 'I'm not sure if it would be worth the effort, except that it's my ego on the line here as well. Failing to get Hawker to run means that Clen is better then I am. I can accept that Davidson was, he had more then a decade at the sticks. Celn has less then two months if you count his time not on medical leave. I might not believe in savants, but I'm not about to lose to one.'  
  
She shut down the log and sighed. Best to do this right after the events, while the memory is fresh. She checked her itinerary. Hmm. Personal time, which she thought she might need if she and Hawker had gone off on each other again. Instead, she'd get in a some exercise..

 

* * *

 

 

<I'm telling you the truth, Hawker,> Lance reiterated, taking a step closer. <I require a linked pilot to engage me if I am to be using ballistic weaponry of any sort, or if it is my intent to kill a human being. And it was my understanding that  _every_  Vanguard had the same safeguards.>  
  
Hawker's optics drifted off into the distance where his sniping target had stood. His brows were furrowed. "They told me it was just very illegal."  
  
<Could you please switch over to internal comms for this discussion? I'm not sure... we don't know who might be listening, captain.>  
  
"Becker and Urkan are gone, wingnut. Besides, I prefer speaking."  
  
The 8041 vented harshly and  _almost_  rolled his eyes. <Don't mind if  _I_  do, then.>  
  
"Be my guest."  
  
Lance thought for a moment, largely stoic in that way of his, but Hawker noticed that he pursed his lips a little and put his hand to his chin. It suited him. However, it suddenly seemed to Hawker that his fellow had never encountered a puzzle like this before - his duties were important and specialized, but dare he say, predictable?   
  
<We were all lied to, then,> came his befuddled conclusion. <Maybe it has something to do with all your years working with these S-class pilots? And all the time you spent with Captain Davidson? I've had numerous pilots, all of them A's, and none of them for more than a couple years at the most. I only got to know them so well.>  
  
"I don't know what to tell you, wingnut, but this has been the case since day one." Hawker did his own thinking for a moment. "When was the last time you tried?"  
  
<Years ago.>  
  
"Hm."  
  
<Perhaps... you were designed this way.>  
  
"Sure does look like it, doesn't it."  
  
<There's a lot about you that's peculiarly designed, captain.>  
  
"Yeah, tell me about it."  
  
A pregnant pause.  
  
<I've noticed that Mr. Celn is a little peculiar as well.>  
  
Hawker snorted and shook his head. "Christ, why is everyone going on about how weird my boyfriend is today?"  
  
Their shared connection 'stuttered' a little bit, though neither of them made any indication of it. <Well, that might explain it.>  
  
Hawker narrowed his optics and squared his shoulders at the other mech. "Might explain  _what_?"  
  
Lance looked sheepishly at him for a brief moment then turned away, folding his own arms and venting.  <He has a way about him, doesn't he?>  
  
"A  _way_  about him?" The black mech moved a little closer, puffing up.  
  
<A way with... er... us Vanguards.>  
  
"Spit it out, sergeant."  
  
<What I'm trying to say is that... I think that I've... experienced attraction towards him.>  
  
Hawker let his shoulders drop and he gave Lance some space again. He snorted and cocked a brow. "I appreciate you comin' clean to me, wingnut, but from the way I saw you touching him yesterday, that much was obvious."  
  
Lance looked a little startled. "It was?"  
  
The black mech grinned and shook his head. Well fuck, if Lance was this clueless as to what he was doing, then apparently he had nothing to worry about. Hawker reminded himself that he  _was_  the only Vanguard, after all, to have been given... certain equipment. The code was there, the pleasure networks binding his homonculous together in ways that a mech like Lance could only dream about. In a sense, Hawker was  _born_  knowing how to pleasure someone. "You're green as grass, aren't you?" he said nonchalantly, suddenly much more at ease. Still, this meant that it was all the more important that the rules he laid down were obeyed. Lance had no other protocol to go by otherwise. "Look, it's like I said before though. This is my unit, and I require that you go through me before doing anything out of the ordinary. Got it?"  
  
Lance looked overwhelmed, but his green eyes brightened. <Of course, sir.>  
  
Hawker looked over the now-seemingly young and naive AI. He was only a couple inches shorter, something that didn't mean much at this size, but Hawker could have  _sworn_  that Lance was looking up at him. It was a little awkward, a little obnoxious, and a little... endearing. "If you have questions, I'd prefer that you bring them to me instead of Soto or any of your other people." A vent. "And I'm not saying to act on this shit, but it would probably be useful for you to familiarize yourself with how human  _courtship_  works. Yannow... in case this happens again."  
  
<I don't think it will, sir. I think there's something about Celn that...>  
  
"Don't get ahead of yourself," he deadpanned, sensing a pang of jealousy from the other machine. Hawker was going to wear that like a badge of fuckin' pride.  
  
<Yes, captain.>  
  
Hawker was getting ready to leave, but Lance put a hand on his shoulder to catch him.   
  
"Sir?"  
  
The 9081 just cocked his brow at Lance.  
  
<Where would you recommend I start?>  
  
A wicked grin spread across his face. <I'm partial to Kink.com, myself,> he sent, saluting with two fingers and disappearing from the sim.  
  
_HAWKER 9081 HAS LEFT THE PROGRAM_  
  
Lance was along with his thoughts for the time being. Kink.com? He'd never heard of that website, and resolved to look into it later. The air force mech knew he felt odd, though, and had since Chris Celn had piloted him the day before. Was it mere excitement at having reached such unprecedented synchronization rates with a human, as lieutenant Soto suggested? Or was it something else?  
  
In his hand appeared a basic, standard-issue pistol, and Lance considered it for a few moments, not sure if he should even be attempting this. It felt wrong to do so, but curiosity was getting the best of him.  
  
Slowly, but steadily, he lifted his arm, and took aim at the horizon, slipping his finger into the trigger guard. His haptic pads felt the cool metal, and with a vent, he squeezed.  
  
The gun didn't fire, but he had depressed the trigger by 3 millimeters.   
  
That was 3 millimeters more than he remembered being able to do.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance quietly pulled again. He could still do it. The actuators within his complex finger shifting slightly. The gun fell to the ground, bouncing twice with depp metallic tones.   
  
No one else is registered within the simulation. This isn't a trick.  
  
Lance stared at his right hand, starting with his pinkie each digit closed in and touched the palm before his thumb came up tight to the side. He pulled his fingertips in tighter to where there is no air gap between them. Then he emitted a venting of warm air. If he is to learn anything from this, relaxation exercises just moved to the top of the list.  
  
For a moment he considered summing a simulacrum of Clen, right there in his hand. But it wouldn't be what he is seeking.  
  
He'd been sent here with a number of objectives. They are important, classified and to be reported on in triplicate. Now he had an objective of his own.  
  
\--  
  
When the 8041 ejected from the simulation the office had emptied out. Lance began his report on Corey Becker as he detached himself from the physical link. Standing up he strode out and came to rest in the alcove allotted to him. He finished before his arms stopped their swinging. 'Conclusion: Trooper Becker is a capable pilot who borders on the A-B classification. He was only able to break over with my assistance. Time will indicate if he is willing to keep his mind open.'  
  
Across from him the 9081 is taking shape a touch more, the humans who crawled over it's surface are a third of its height. They appeared fragile in contrast to the brutish mech. His glaze strayed down to his right hand, still held in a tight fist. With a venting of hot air he release the tension and let his arm hand at his side. Mechanical. Yes. Yes. He is the Air Force's biggest deployable asset.  
  
\--  
  
As the time ticked past 1347 elevator B carried it's cargo down to the motor pool. Lance found his attention drifting to the complex works of Precinct 42 and the elevators are amusing. Over 800 permanent persons here yet they almost always went solo in the metal lifts. He considered three different transit algorithms that might help the main AI pick which floors to park the elevators on when not in use.  
  
Chris Celn is 5'6" and 160 of nicely toned muscle. He wore dirty sweatpants and matching t-shirt. Both are from the standard issue police catalogue of approved uniform items, as are his athletic shoes. On the left side of his forehead is a bruise with a cut, held on with two white steri-strips. It had bled slightly, the blood wiped away along with his perspiration. He had minor scrapes on his forearms and his knuckles are red. The small pilot took a moment to examine the 9081. He lifted up his shirt to rub at his waist, Lance noted a scar and large bruises. Older ones.  
  
Then his shining green eyes met the similarly hued ones of the pilot.   
  
"Mr. Celn. I was not expecting you."  
  
"Yeah." CHris winced, the small split on his lip throbbed in an ugly way. "I brought this down." In his hands lay an elastic band, full of black rubber-coated electronics and OH!  
  
"Its a wireless interface. Hmmm. Older model. Can you put it on please?"  
  
"Sure. Hrf. Hurts to talk." It went on as a collar, prominently too. No disguising it like Soto's 'neck brace.'  
  
Lance pondered how to best re-calibrate the device. It possesses solid encryptions. Perhaps.. no.. .. not that.. AH!   
  
He reached down and held his hand near Celn, bathing him in electronic radiation for a moment.  
  
There! The collar respond to an older standard issue military passcode.  
  
Chris felt the interface kick on and something on the other end, something that pleasantly wasn't Hawker. Even via the remote connection to Lance's touch is gentler than Hawker firm grasp.  
  
<There. Now myself and the 9081 can communicate with you remotely. You appear to be injured.>  
<It's just from sparring with Torres. She's SWAT, way tougher then she looks and she's got inches on me.>  
<Yes, looking her up now. Hm. She would be difficult for you to win against. Why is she training you? Wouldn't a person close to your stature be better suited to meet that need?>  
  
Fucking billion dollar air force wingnuts. Chris stole some of the boss's chosen expletives, the marine-trained mech had amusing viewpoints on branches of the military. <First nearly everyone is bigger then me. So I should be trained to expect that in combat. Second, we don't have a huge local roster and she volunteered for the job. And, uh.. are we okay? I REALLY want to scrub clean.>  
  
Lance wondered how waterproof the collar is. All of the components appeared to be weather-tight. <A moment..> His index finger twitched, squeezing in more then a few millimeters to touch Chris's back before retreating. He could still do THAT too! Without asking permission. <..physically yes. Please keep the collar on for now as I have some inquiries.>  
  
Chris nodded and walked off, still favoring his left leg as the right REALLY started to hurt. He might have to track down hawker and beg for a double round of pills today.  
  
<First I think you should know about how my session with Becker went...> Lance began before filling the ether with a detailed explanation.  
  
Don't you have someone else to talk to? Chris mentally winced. Fuck, maybe Hawker could teach him to do the thing where people don't want to talk to him.  
  
It wasn't until CHris pulled off his shirt and pants, and Lance caught the double-reflected view from Celn's eyes that Lance stopped. Not only is the pilot wearing just a jockstrap but there are marks on his body. Large bite marks on his skin, on his chest and shoulders. Bruises in colors that spoke about their age and intensity. Many of them would be roughly the right size for the Ares to inflict.  
  
<Chris.> Lance's usual calm, caffeinated and logical tone had emotion in it. <Those are not from sparring.>  
  
<They are! Just.. not from Torres.> There were little flashes then, even over the link's limited data, of Hawker smirking with the Ares's face.  
  
<I have to report this. You are being abused by a superior officer. Polic Human Resources material, chapter 7 lines 1 through-->  
  
< **NO.** >  
  
<What?>  
  
<They are aware. Lance, listen, there is so much for me to explain. But I need to clean up, download the next few chapters of your interlock system and TRY to fucking index it in my head. And I need to get in a run as I've been skipping it sense the holiday. I like you. I want to plug into you and be better then before. So.. fuck. Think about what you wanna know. Try to ask short questions?>  
  
Then the link dropped as he shut down the collar.  
  
\--  
  
Chris ached in the wrong sort of way. Hawker had him in a damn death grip last night while he'd gotten an orgasam fucked out of him before the Ares had pumped a liter into his guts. He felt grimy, gross and wanted to take a long shower before going to bed. But oh no, he had at least two hours of downloads to face. Bleh. And a jog. Maybe he's run on a treadmill and Lance could help with these manuals. Not caring who saw him, he stalked off to the showers to wipe off the battle damage.

 

* * *

 

 

"You said you had news?" Hawker said, knocking on the frame to Colburn's office door. She was at her desk, an enormous station cluttered with monitors, datapads, paperwork, and parts. She had her feet up and was sucking down some cold chow mein from a white takeout container, and beside her was a large bottle of Sriracha.  
  
"Mm!" she grunted at him with her mouth full, then put up a finger as she washed it down with coffee. Hawker had no idea what coffee and spicy chow mein tasted like, but the Chief Engineer's 'tasteblindness' had been classic material in Thule's jokes for years. Naturally, it was well-known that her husband did all the cooking. "This," she said, handing him a pad, "Is for you."  
  
Hawker took the device, and immediately saw the Chicago PD's iconic star emblem, underneath which were the words  _Special Weapons and Tactics_. It was the cover for a 480-page training manual in PDF form. As he glanced over the table of contents, it occurred to him that this was designed for human study.  
  
"Is this for Chris?" he asked, not so sure what she was trying to get at.  
  
However, it quickly became apparent that he was wrong when she laughed and stood up. "Heavens no! It's for  _you!_ " She bent down and grabbed a cardboard box, its courier label having been sliced through to open it. She pulled out a very large black, long-sleeved tactical shirt that Hawker recognized immediately as belonging to a SWAT uniform. He smiled, taking it from her to look it over for himself.  
  
"You shouldn't have," he said, smile getting bigger as he looked in the box and saw the rest of it in there: gloves, pants, vest, thigh and groin armor, belt, and...  
  
He reached in to grab a poly bag with patches inside. One of them had his name written in white on black.  
  
"A belated Christmas present from Mendoza over at the ESU. One of her best point-men is on medical leave for six months, so she asked for you to fill in."  
  
Hawker  _was_  technically already trained to be part of 42's SWAT response, but... that was in the 9081. Not the Ares - not in uniform, with a team at his back and handcuffs at his belt. Not with a  _badge_. This felt good. Right. Affirming, oddly enough. The idea of kicking in a door, cornering someone at gunpoint, yelling at them to get on the floor, excited him - he couldn't wait to take it out on Chris later.  _Surprise! Daddy has some suppression tactics to practice tonight..._  
  
"You're right though," she continued with a chuckle, "We probably shouldn't have. The DoD was going to put up a fight, but all Kole had to do was send them the itemized budget for our Vanguard arm of the Mech Unit, and they doubled back pretty quickly. You're not exactly a cheap date, Nine. Besides, you're  _bored_. I can tell. Had to give you a job to do while you wait for the 9081 to get back up and running - you know Kole doesn't like freeloaders."  
  
His smile faded a little as he put the bag back in the box, fishing out something else: a sidearm holster. His foreprocessors went back to Lance in the sim. "How am I going to play point if I can't fire a weapon?"  
  
"They're drafting conditional regulations just for you as we speak," she said, settling back down into her chair and reaching for the chow mein again. "The commissioner already said he'd approve it, so I expect a few days for it to sit on the governor's desk and you should be golden." She smiled again, shaking her head. There was a twinkle in her eyes. "Imagine that, Hawker. You'll be the first AI to serve on a law enforcement team in a fully autonomous capacity.  _And_  you'll finally get to use the Ares for what it was designed for!"  
  
Hawker's face was contemplative, not frowning for once, as he stepped over to the door and gently closed it. He didn't say anything, instead thinking about how to broach the issue on his mind.  
  
"...Hawker?"  
  
"Is it true that I'm the only Vanguard that can use lethal force without a pilot?" he asked, voice quiet, but steady. This is something he had to know. It was another piece to the puzzle.  
  
Colburn's shoulders drooped and she set down her food again, but didn't get out of the chair. Her chest rose and she heaved a sigh. "Yes," she relented after a moment. "You're the only one."  
  
"Why didn't you tell me that either?" he said. His face was hard, but his words betrayed a little hurt. He thought that they had come so far in trusting each other these past few months! He had done  _everything_  she asked from him! He thought the dirty laundry was all aired out, but maybe he should have known better: secrets would always be the name of the game.  
  
"I didn't  _lie_  to you, if that's what you're accusing me of. No AI is permitted to fire a weapon or otherwise use lethal force against a human being without the express guidance of a human operator. Mech Act, section -"  
  
"Section 28," he finished with a vent. Hawker cupped his heavy chin and said nothing, wondering where he was going with this.  
  
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "Why did they give you the  _option_. To be honest with you, I have no idea. I'm sure someone at the new Pentagon in Columbus knows, but they're not talking."  
  
Hawker wasn't entirely convinced that this wasn't just another skeleton waiting to come busting out of his closet like some flesh-eating horror. But at the moment, he couldn't see a drawback, no matter how hard he tried. He hadn't even seen a reprimand for his unconventional behavior during the Thanksgiving Invasion. While no one had been there to get footage of the fight at Wolf Lake, recordings of their comm chatter, plus data from his black box would have painted enough of a picture to have him bricked. But in all likelihood, someone knew what he was capable of, and it was beginning to look like they were more interested in covering for his antics than they were in preventing them. Someone knew that Ishcheyka was still there.  
  
"It's going to be OK, I promise. Nobody's broken any laws, and while your taste in...  _PDAs_  has me clutching my pearls sometimes, you've never given me any reason to think that you're going to start shooting up innocent people." Their eyes met and she gave him a look that conveyed her matriarchal authority. "You know right from wrong, Nine, and you've earned the trust of everyone in this town. Don't overthink things."  
  
He was overthinking it, wasn't he?   
  
"C'mon, where's that smile? I  _know_  you're looking forward to this."  
  
The corner of his mouth lifted as he turned the holster over under his gaze one last time before tossing it back into the box. "It's going to be a lot of fun."  
  
Colburn burst out laughing. "Jesus Christ, Hawker, do  _not_  use that word outside of this precinct, you hear?"  
  
His grin widened. "I'm gonna be all smiles on my first raid Chief, I don't care  _whose_  camera catches me!"  
  
Her laughing continued. "Hawker, no! You can't! They're going to have my head! That's an order!"  
  
The mech grabbed the box of goodies to take upstairs and dump in Chris' room for now. "Just you wait 'til they invite me on an episode of 60 minutes."  
  
"Hey, where are you going with those?"  
  
"Puttin' em in my room, ma'am."  
  
"You have a room now?"  
  
"Mr. Celn's room  _is_  my room."  
  
She shook her head, getting back to her lunch so she could get back to work. "When they issue your gun, it's gotta go in a locker like everyone else. No more special treatment,  _capiche?_ "  
  
He chuckled. "Yeah, yeah,  _capisco_." He opened the door again, box under his arm, and paused. "Hey, and Chief?"  
  
"Mm?"  
  
"Thanks."  
  
\--  
  
As soon as he left Colburn's office, he noticed something different on the periphery of his machine awareness. Something familiar was being used again. He could feel it like a draft from an open window someplace. A little digging around was all it took for him to recognize that signal: Chris' wireless link collar.  
  
_Excellent_ , he thought, not bothering to check who else might've been privvy to the signal traffic coming and going.  _The kid's taking some initiative. I think I might go surprise him in my new uniform after all._  
  
He was feeling good again, confident. After all, wasn't this a kind of promotion? It followed, then, that his boy ought to help him celebrate. If he was good, he'd know that Hawker would want him to resist 'arrest' too...  
  
\--  
  
Lance picked up Hawker's presence in the connection immediately, finding it strange that the captain seemed to either be unaware of, or at least deliberately ignoring, his surveillance as well. The air force mech had detected the other Vanguard's encryption codes sitting in the device's software, but it had looked as if Hawker hadn't accessed the collar in weeks. Of course it would have appeared to him now like a beacon amid the organized chaos of wireless signals going every which way about the precinct. He was wired to home in on the presence of his pilot, so much was obvious - or that at least it was a uniquely gratifying protocol to follow, even if it wasn't a programmed response.   
  
A few moments passed, and still Hawker did not reach out to him. Could it be that he didn't know he was there? The Ares had a vastly different comm system compared to a Vanguard, and was designed with combat and brute force in mind, not electronic tactics. Even compared to the 9081, Lance could jam circles around Hawker. Perhaps the mech merely lacked sophistication in that regard.  
  
Either way, Lance was debating on whether or not to make himself known right away, or if he should... hang back and observe how the captain interacted with the others.   
  
Or how he interacted with  _Chris_...

 

* * *

 

 

Chris wanted to relax in the shower until the hot water ran out. But he really needed to get his cardio back on track and return to what felt like a never ending list of tasks. He double checked that he is completely clean of soap before sighing. "Fuck, I thought cops had easy jobs."  
  
He twisted the handles of the shower and stepped into the tiny cubby that held his clothes and towel, just beyond the reach of the spraying water. Drying off, dressing and wiping the deodorant under his arms.  
  
A cleaner, tired and stronger Chris looked at him from the mirror. His smile twisted up at the way the cut looked with the steri-strips. Kinda sexy actually, like an MMA fighter after a match, dripping with blood and testosterone. He'd gotten those corded muscles showing in his neck a little too. Hell, maybe one day he'd have a build better than Becker! Maybe.  
  
\--  
  
Chris pulled the collar on first, letting Lance get the feeling for what the little organic humans did when they weren't around him. Immediately after it synched up Lance is there, eager.   
  
<First, just why is being injured a good thing?>  
  
<It's not. It can be really, amazingly pleasurable if done right. hawker knows how to do it right. Plus he gets to enjoy doing it to me, very much give and take on that.> He pulled on fresh underwear. As his thighs are getting more toned, he'd needed to have something to contain his package and keep it stable as he ran. Boxer-briefs did not work great with vigorous activity.  
  
<I'll need to think on that. Second: How do you keep him from hurting you too much, the Ares is able to cripple you in a single blow.>  
  
Chris groaned. Just how stupid is Lance, didn't he know about.. well, anything? T-shirt, running shorts. He sat on the lone chair in his room and pulled on socks. Need to get a bedframe. A heavy-duty one.  
  
<Look, You need to search about kink-play on the internet. But to put it in broad terms; we set limits. We discuss beforehand. We had a safe word which means stop and let me go' if I say it. >  
  
Lance frowned. His hands opened and closed. Purposely being injured? But the AI who be keeping it's pilot as safe as possible? If Lance were in that small chassis, his pilot would have him as a permanent and vigiland bodyguard. Thick feet mage little puffs of concrete dust as he stepped in place. Things did not compute.  
  
<Tomorrow I expect you on time at 0800. And I have no problems with you being in my cockpit, the datastream can be exported just like it would be in the sim room.>  
  
Feeling Celn ties his shoes is strange, the ways his fingers pulled and wrapped around the laces to tie a knot without consciously being aware of the dexterity of the act. He could see what Chris saw through the link. And what he saw next is Hawker entering the bedroom, tall and brawn, carrying a large box and looking mighty pleased with himself. There's a joyous surge from Celn then. Then Lance experienced hugging Hawker from that short perspective.  
  
Ideas of safety, friendship, trust. THose Lance knew. The warmth Chris exuded, is that love? Did he love his captain? Did he love his Mech?  
  
Lance wished he understood what is happening. He felt as confused as when he tried to play a dating simulator.  
  
"Hey Boss! I need to go for a run. What do you have in there?" Annoyingly, Hawker kept lifting the box so that Chris, and his voyer Lance couldn't get a peek inside.

 

* * *

 

 

 _"Hey Boss! I need to go for a run. What do you have in there?"_  
  
On his way up he had been clued into the situation - a little frustrated, but utterly unsurprised that the air force mech would be here.  
  
"A little something from the Chief," he said, grinning as he played keep-away for a few moments. He finally set it down on Chris' desk, covering the label with his big hand.  <Who you talkin' to, kiddo?> Hawker then asked with a cocked brow through Chris' wireless, knowing damn well what the answer was.  
  
Lance stepped forward before Chris could answer. <Captain, I have been present across this connection for the past 27 minutes, and at no point did you appear to detect me. May I suggest that we have Chief Engineer Colburn run a full diagnostic of your comm system so that we might look into upgrading-->  
  
Hawker's face fell into a neat deadpan. "Jesus H Christ," he muttered aloud, rolling his optics dramatically. "I  _knew_  you were there,  _technical sergeant_. You were talking loud enough for the medical droids to hear you." Then, to Chris, with a snort: "Is this seriously what I was getting jealous of?"  
  
In his alcove, Lance folded his arms, feeling a little indignant at being spoken to like that. Hawker had no sense of propriety when it came to his choice of words - is that Davidson who taught him to talk like that? He sounded like any number of the young, cocky pilots they had strutting around base. 'Please' and 'thank you' didn't even seem to be part of his vocabulary.  
  
<I was merely asking some questions. You told me to acquaint myself with... human courting, so I decided that your partner would be a sufficient place to start. Unfortunately, and I mean no offense, Mr. Celn, but he doesn't appear to be the best case study.>  
  
Hawker stepped closer to Chris, staring him square in the eyes. It was as good as doing it to the real thing. "And why isn't he?"  
  
<The two of you appear to partake in  _very_  odd courtship behavior. I'm not sure that it's a useful place for me to start learning.>  
  
The face on the Ares smirked as he circled around his boy, who was biting back a laugh, until he stood behind him. Bulge to the small of Chris' back, hands on his waist as he bent forward to graze his denta along his neck. <C'mon, wingnut, I'm sure you could learn a thing or two from this.> His strong lips parted and he navigated low, just to the hem around the neck of his shirt, and bit, fat tongue darting out to lick at the warming skin before applying just enough suction to create a faint hickey. Colburn's ban on visible bruising had largely been referring to impact bruises, right? Becker walked around with visible hickeys often enough for the jokes to have gotten old.  
  
Lance, meanwhile, could...  _feel_  that. At least, he could feel it from Celn's perspective. He felt the neurochemicals, the signals that transmitted from his brain to his body and back again in a thrumming chorus of lightning-fast bioelectric messages telling him that this was  _pleasurable_. And the bulge, Lance realized in a sudden neurospace-assisted epiphany, was male genitalia.  
  
Hawker had  _male genitals_?  
  
To what purpose?  
  
Of course Lance  _knew_  the purpose of the phallus and testes, but this was something other than just mere reproductive function. This was a fellow machine, a fellow Deep Field 2 AI! What use did  _he_  have for it? Was it to appease Chris? Was it some sort of experiment being carried out by DARPA?   
  
The warmth that Chris felt, though, the surge of blood, Lance felt also. His coolant pumps slowed, allowing his power core to heat up the tiniest bit. The warmth crept through his chassis, all the way out to the haptic pads at his fingertips.   
  
What a curious thing...

 

* * *

 

 

"What is it?" The small human jumped, hands scrabbling on the thick muscle of his right arm.   
"Lemme see!" Easily tall enough to put the box on the ceiling with room to spare, Hawker could play keep-away all day long.  
  
Figuring out that he wasn't going to know until his boss is ready, Chris frumped and dropped down. What did Hawker have there? Sounded heavy.  
  
  
_"Is this seriously what I was getting jealous of?"_  
  
Chris nodded solemnly, a smirk on his face. "Lance is pleasant and curious. You're gruff and domineering. I think you know which I enjoy more." He pushed his fingers into the Big Dog (TM) shirt Hawker is wearing. Where did that come from?  
  
Then the AIs started talking to each other  _through_  him. It felt exceptionally weird, knowing that Lance is answering both in his mind and over the wireless. Hawker seemed to just know too, somehow directing his annoyance through Chris rather then at him. Is this what the Mechs experienced when someone spoke to the human within?  
  
Predatorily, the Ares circled him, pushing up firm and hard from behind. CHris tilted his head to make room for his boss. The link is open too. Lance could shut it down at any time of course. What he could feel is the continuous stream of curiosity from the other AI. Lance craved the experience.  
  
Perhaps that is the difference. Chris managed to think a little to himself as Hawker's lips pressed up against his neck. Audibly sucking in a breath the pilot shuddered in pleasure. He felt wanted. He knew Hawker desired to just his shorts down and skewer him on the spot! He felt a little moan escape his lips as he reached back.  
  
Hawker felt his boy's hands wandering over his thighs, squeezing and stroking. Such a google little scab, his little scab. Another firmer bite and Chris made a happy yelp.  
  
Lance's reactor ticked another degree higher. His right hand curled into a fist and he leaned his back firmly into the concrete wall. Little flashes of memory from Chris told him that Hawker not only is very male in the ares, but had used that equipment on his pilot. Such things are utterly against regulations! Fraternization is a no-go!  
  
And yet...  
These surges of emotion from the s-class pilot. Lance felt every tingle from the human once every few six seconds. THe bandwidth simply couldn't keep up with the full download he kept requesting. Lance became aware of Hawker's prowess as Chris became more and more willing to indulge his superior officer in a quicky. Each press of the hand, every hip-thrust, the lewd promises spoken in the rookie's ear.  
  
For Lance, he might as well had the 9081 behind him. Hawker had a penis and is well-versed in it's use. How? And what did such an experience feel like? Did sex create a bond with the pilot?  
  
Lance vented a buildup of steam pressure from his percolating reactor. He wasn't sure what he wanted now. Something bit at him. The sensation is similar to when he is tracking a target or breaking through encryption. He snorted.   
  
Perhaps it's just overflow from Chris. Making him experience what his pilot experienced. That might be possible. If so he should kill the connection and see if the experience continued.  
  
A long minute later, Lance still hung on the line- unwilling to stop feeling something  _new._  
  
"B-Bosssss!" hissed Chris, squirming in a way that lifted up the hem of his shirt and showed off his smooth stomach and the start of his atlas belt. "I need to go running or I'll get fat! And if we play I won't be in any shape to run. Or walk if you put THAT into me!"

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker sensed Lance grow quiet on the other end of the 'line', but it was thick with focus, interest, expectancy. The air force mech was fixated on what was happening with the proverbial bated breath. Hm.  
  
_"B-Bosssss! I need to go running or I'll get fat! And if we play I won't be in any shape to run. Or walk if you put THAT into me!"_  
  
The Ares laughed, giving his boy one last hard grind before letting him go with a slap on his firm, perky ass. "Well don't let me stop you," he said, thumbing towards the door. Chris made a little face and glanced at the box when he realized that he wouldn't get to find out what was in it yet. "I'll show you tonight," the mech said. "And Lance is  _not_  tagging along." A smirk. "He doesn't have the proper clearance. Now get out of here, and that's an order."  
  
\--  
  
Soto had just finished a session in the gym and rinsed off before heading back downstairs to write her daily logs with Lance. She ran some fingers through her short, smartly cut brown hair as she disembarked the elevator. She'd encountered a SWAT trainer named Toren and the pair had exchanged some friendly -  _very_  friendly - banter near the end there, which put a spring in the pilot's step. Soto thought about asking her to grab a cup of coffee one of these days, but decided against it. She didn't enjoy starting relationships when she knew she was only going to be shipping out again in a few months, and getting involved with other service members was usually a messy affair besides.  
  
Lance was in his alcove, looking stately as usual. Soto liked him, she really did - she liked the curve of his chest, the sleek lines of his back and shoulders. He was easily the most interesting machines she'd ever piloted, as well as the most challenging... and rewarding. She wasn't going to be his pilot forever, though. He'd be retired someday, or she'd be transferred elsewhere, or maybe she'd really dig in and pursue the kind of promotions that would put her in an office chair instead of a pilot's seat, even though there was something of a glass ceiling for scabs. Her kind tended to think a little different than fleshnecks.  
  
"How was Corey Becker?" she asked, setting a bottle of water down on a service cart and reaching for her wireless linkup.   
  
Lance almost started, it seemed like. His hands, which had been gathered up into fists, suddenly loosened and he straightened from where he'd been leaning against the wall. Subtle things that no one but she and his techs would notice. "I was very pleased with Lieutenant Becker's performance. He has a lot of potential," said Lance, his light, even voice giving nothing away. "Urkan has the results from the session if you'd like to take a look at them, ma'am."  
  
"I will. Later, though." She paused to think for a moment, glancing sidelong at her mech before turning back to her brace-shaped device, thinking about his odd behavior lately. She was getting the thoughts out of the way now before she would be tempted to dwell on them while linked. "He didn't happen to collect any data on  _your_  vitals during these sessions, did he?"  
  
"All of my simulated readouts are available in the -"  
  
"No, I meant your  _actual_  vitals. For the 8041."  
  
"Urkan did not personally record them, but I can... make those available to you, ma'am."  
  
"I'd like to compare them tomorrow, if you don't mind." Soto wanted to know how he was personally reacting to Celn as opposed to his A-pilots. Damn - she'd need some way to compare him to another S-class before she could come up with anything conclusive, however. But it just wasn't going to happen. S-pilots weren't exactly a dime a dozen.  
  
Lance nodded, cool and collected. "Of course, ma'am."  
  
She slipped the brace on, felt the contact surfaces mate, and Lance was with her. <Have you written your report, yet?> She didn't know that her machine had abruptly terminated his connection with Chris just before syncing with her.  
  
<I have not. Trainee Celn is still on-duty and I... I wanted to wait for alpha shift's workday to finish before I filed my report.>  
  
Soto shrugged, clearing her mind of prior suspicion. <Fair enough. In the meantime, I'm giving you mine.>  
  
\--  
  
Becker strode into the common area, head held high with a grin plastered across his flawless, chiseled face. He lifted his arms and slapped at the doorway as he did so, signalling his entrance. "Alright, who's on-duty tonight?" he announced to the room.   
  
A few temp pilots were playing Mechwarrior - Tsung was doing drone rounds, then - while Jane and Leslie sat at the table in the corner sharing a bag of chips and fiddled with their phones.  
  
"Why?" Leslie asked as the others paused their game.  
  
"Because  _I_  survived Lance's hot seat today, bringing me one step closer to piloting Big Fuckin' Nine, and I'm in the mood to celebrate."  
  
The two girls looked at each other, then back at him. "Callahan's?" they said at the same time before bursting into laughter.  
  
"You read my mind!" he replied, before turning his attention to the others. "Hey! You too! You guys are off, right?"  
  
"Me and Spiegelman are on-call," Imani said, and the pair from uptown exchanged disappointed looks.   
  
The other two perked up. "We're not!"  
  
"Alright, c'mon, c'mon! I'll grab us a pitcher, it's on me. I'm scheduled for New Year's Eve anyways, gotta get a little fun in this week before the riff-raff start causing the usual holiday trouble." Corey was buzzing from his day's success, pumped to keep working with Lance. Finally, things were looking up! And no thanks to tall, dark, and  _trigger-happy_. "Gonna ask Toren and the army guys if they wanna come too."  
  
"Air force."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, same thing."   
  
"What about Chris and Hawker?"  
  
"Eh...  _Ithinkthey'rebusytonight_." A lie; he wasn't in the mood to be around them right now. Especially given what he wanted to toast to. "Look, I'll meet you all downstairs in 30, OK?" He smacked the back of the couch and turned to head toward his suite before anyone could answer.   
  
Not that he needed to - free beer had a way of motivating folks.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris made the right kind of yelp when spanked. Such a good boy. Hawker watched that ass dance as his pilot left with a hustle, a smirk forming on his face. Tonight is going to be fun.  
  
\--  
  
Lance existed as Chris for a second at a time, once every six seconds. Each second is a snapshot of the pilot, followed by another 5 seconds of packets of the same moment. The collar is transmitting so much data because Lance kept asking. The latency is horrible! Lance could feel Hawker against his skin. The power and pressure of the Ares's hands on his waist.  
  
Not that he had skin to speak of. But for each singular moment he was Chris Celn. He could be a human. Touching the door. A moment where a room full of people waved to him. Normal sized people, people who are taller than him. He wanted the sensations to continue forever!  
  
_"How was Corey Becker?"_  
  
Like a teen caught looking at pornography, Lance is startled out of his reverie. He toned down the data rate to a where he received enough to fill a single second. One FPS, as it were. Steadying himself, he let out his held breath before trusting his own voice.  
  
He calmly informed his pilot, Virginia Soto, about his feelings on Trooper Becker. Every moment spent not attempting to devour the sensory data from Celn is a moment of exceptional bordem! Why couldn't she just.. just..  
  
Soto unplugged the collar from the charger and placed it around her neck.  
  
..what am I doing? Lance asked himself, ending the connection to Chris. 'Why do I want do watch him?' Without the datastream, the need for more seemed to end as well.  
  
Did Celn somehow create a feedback loop between himself and an AI? Or is it simply a case of near-perfect interlacing? There are no clear answers, just Soto ringing in.  
  
\--  
  
Virginia knew something is off-center with Lance. He hid it well though, well enough that she also knew the problem wasn't serious. Perhaps he was feeling cooped up? Normally he had free run of most of the base, miles of tarmac in all directions. Maybe he needed some fresh air.  
  
<Hawker was shockingly civil today. Almost an entirely different persona. He spoke about how I needed to earn the 'right' to pilot him.> SHe rolled her eyes, Lance giving her an understanding smile.  
  
<He enjoys speaking down to anyone he can. He prefers 'wingnut' for me, a robot/air force pun.> Lance gestured mild annoyance with his massive hands.  
  
<Anything special with Becker?> Soto asked, clearly remembering the way the Trooper filled out a uniform.  
  
<He's barely a-class. I think he might be a solid A if he can overcome his own internal resistance. He's scared to trust me.> Lance considered, then added <If his only experience is hawker, then it's well-placed fear.>  
  
Soto digested that thought, trying to imagine how yesterday would have gone down if she didn't know how to manage an angry Deep Field 2. <Yes, I think I understand. Perhaps you'll be what he needs. If you can tame his ego.>  
  
<He is otherwise exemplary; excellent vision, build, athleticism, determination and does not lack for confidence.> Lance summarised.  
  
<So every pilot out of flight school.> She chuckled for real, the smile and humor shared over the link.  
  
<Yes, even you. Do you recall how you'd leave your uniform unzipped from the neck to your-->  
  
<lance..>  
  
<Or the mirror sunglasses that you'd wear after a night of -->  
  
<Lancer!>  
  
<Yes, Pilot Soto?> Came the smarmy, know-it-all voice of the mech.  
  
<I know you'll tame him. I noticed you pushed for Celn in your hotseat tomorrow. Think he's ready for you?>  
  
Lance's intake fans churned suddenly, exhausing a held-in plume of steam from his reactor. < **Yes.** >  
  
<Are you excited for this?> She teased, crossing her arms and tilting her head. <I'm not convinced that he's taken in enough of the training guides to operate you effectively. Might have to order you to wait until he's digested the materials.>  
  
  
Mr Celn has experienced more combat time in a Vanguard then you have.  
Mr Celn has enough experience to pilot me without issue.  
Mr Celn tamed Hawker on the first try.   
Mr Celn makes my circuits burn and itch and I want to hook into him and learn  **why!**  
  
  
Lance reflexively scrubbed his rapid-transmissions from Soto's collar before they were transmitted to her implant. She inadvertently touched a nerve! Sense when did he have such limited composure?  
  
<I trust in your judgement on such matters. He is physically ready, and I am sure as well trained as one could be in two days. Should I reschedule him for the sim room?>  
  
<What? No!> Gods, when Lance is mad he just followed orders. Every, fracking order. To. THE. LETTER. God forbid you forgot protocol or obscure regulation when he got in a mood. She ran a hand through her hair. Lance really is ancy! <I think you're just feeling claustrophobic. Or cooped up. You can't go hid in an empty hanger here or jog down a runway when you're feeling restless. Want to go for a walk?>  
  
Lance drew back in consideration. Then popped his hatch, going down to open his hand for his pilot. Sovereign the remote connection he spoke with a smile. "Yes ma'am I would."  
  
\--  
  
Chris double-checked the tablet on the door of the crash room. Empty, no scheduled activity for a few days. Good.  
  
The room is lit by mild lighting, the wrecked environment felt like the more bombed out parts of the city. Something about that felt like home. Earbuds in, he cued up some music and set a timer for an hour. Feet thumping on dusty and uneven ground. Breaths in the still air, the temperature of the huge underground room regulated by the Earth, not noisy HVAC. It felt peaceful here as well. Like early fall weather.  
  
-\|/-/|\\-  
  
He'd fallen into a runner's trance, hands dirty from vaulting over broken concrete rubble, when the timer went off. He slowed into a jog, feeling his body shedding heat with the sweat that run down his back and brow.   
  
<...Celn.>  
  
Chris winced. He'd been nicely empty headed and now.. fuck. <Hey Lance.>  
  
<I have questions.>  
  
Of course you fucking do. <Toss 'em at me buddy.>  
  
<Are you attracted to me?>  
  
THAT made him stumble, twist and almost catch a facefull of dirt. He slowed to a walk and strode towards the doors.   
  
<I.. yeah? You're a big mech and handsome. So.. yeah. I guess I physically do? I don't know you that well as a person though?> Even through the mental connection, his voice went up in pitch as he answered with a question.  
  
Lance's metallic frame felt cooler. The walk around the station did help, and they'd taken a few photos with the officers who were moving in and out of the building. Becker along with several of the pilots were leaving the precinct for an evening out.  
  
He is handsome? He is a person?  
  
Lance wasn't sure about such classifications. But there are compliments.  
  
<You are interesting. Most humans are dull.> Lance admitted. <I want to learn about you. Your records are surprisingly difficult to locate.>  
  
Was that flirting? Or, like Hawker kept saying, 'Is he that clueless?' Stalking? And admitting to stalking?  
  
<I have dark and seedy past.> Chris pushed out sarcastically. <I'm a delinquent who did just about every drug you can before I hit 18.>  
  
<That is.. curious. Corey Becker had enough taurine in his system to give an elephant arrhythmia. Soto refuses to hop in unless she's just put down coffee. My first pilot could piss pure Red Bull. What was your favorite?>  
  
Chris frowned. He wished they were talking verbally so drinking water would let him stall for time. Why not tell the truth? <Hallucinogens. Let me escape, get away from my troubles.>  
  
<Do we feel like that to you?> Fuck Lance could talk quick.  
  
<What?>  
  
<Hawker and I. Are we an escape for you?>  
  
<I.. Uh.. Maybe? I sure as hell can lose myself in Hawker. Being him.>  
  
<Interesting. Try and get in your studying tonight. Tomorrow, 0800, be in my alcove.>  
  
\---  
  
"So, what's he like?" asked Jane, lounging up against Wen. It'd been a surprise meeting the 8041 and Soto, just 'out for a walk.' The 'army guys', of course, declined the offer.  
  
"A-Maze-Ing!" Becker pronounced each syllable long and hard. "He's a real professional, calm and cool. He's the best at what he does and isn't afraid to show me."  
  
"Sounds like Nine." LT Toren observed.  
  
"NO, no no no. Hawker: he shouts and growls and refuses to listen unless he wants too. Lance was: he'd let me gonna fuck up until I let him help me." Corey tried to explain.  
  
"Help you? What do you mean?" Asked Ferdinand.  
  
"You gotta become the mech. This morning I was Lance! I was fourteen feelt of ass-kicking awesome! We clicked and damn it is A-Maze-Ing!" Becker near-shouted with a smile on his face.  
  
"Sorta like when you do predictive aiming with guns?" asked Ferd, the B-class pilot raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Yeah? Yeah. But with your whole body, down to your toes."  
  
"Damn! No wonder you and Chris look like shit coming out of the Vanguards. Sounds like it wrings you out."  
  
Becker puffed up his chest and smirked. He and Chris were on the same level now and he'd catch up to the runt soon. "Yeah, it can." he admitted, brushing imagined lint off his pecs. "But Davidson didn't have that problem. If I can learn with Lance, I can train up to that level."

 

* * *

 

 

Chris had given Lance some things to ponder alone. The human was such a delicious puzzle to figure out, and... addicting. Definitely addicting. He had spent some time that evening perusing information on the various popular drugs on the market, and the particulars of their effects on the human brain so that he might understand Chris a little better. What he was coming to find, however, was that Chris was having something of a similar effect on  _him_.   
  
When Soto had gone upstairs for the evening and he was sure Urkan had called it a night as well, Lance began writing his report.  
  
_Chris Celn continues to surprise, fascinate, and impress. Though it has been over a day since we shared presence in neurospace, I continue to experience the sensation of incompleteness without him synced with me. For lack of a better word, I am **attracted**  to this pilot. I cannot explain this phenomenon, and I have not experienced it before with any other pilot, though I speculate that it may have something to do with his S-class status..._  
  
\--  
  
"But Davidson didn't have that problem. If I can learn with Lance, I can train up to that level."  
  
Ferd shot a look at the others over his pint, giving a little shrug and wiggling his brows. "Yeah dude, whatever you say, man."  
  
Becker set his glass down loudly. "What, you don't believe me?" he said, puffing up a little. "Give me six months with Lance and I'm telling you... this pretty face is gonna be looking out at you from the cover of GQ."  
  
Ferd had that shit-eating grin of his, and it was clear to everyone else at the table that he was in the mood to push buttons. " _GQ_ , that's it? I thought you always said you wanted to be on - what was it -  _Time_?"  
  
"I'm gonna be on every fuckin' magazine in the _country_." Becker said like it was a threat he was planning on making good on, leveling his pointer finger at everyone gathered around the table.  
  
Ferd winked at one of the loaner pilots, who continued to stifle her laughter. "Yeah, and Kole's gonna be Mr. January on the charity calendar."  
  
Corey downed the rest of his beer, the third so far. "Fine! Let's see _you_ make it into neurospace with a DF2."  
  
The table exploded into laughter when Ferdinand threw up his hands. "Nope! You will  _not_  see me taking a dick that big up my brain's asshole!" More laughter. "No thank you!"  
  
\--  
  
Leslie had gone up to the bar to grab another drink, squeezing in between a few crammed bodies to get the bartender's attention. It wasn't packed, but the pub was still crowded, what with new year's eve just a couple nights away.   
  
"She hasn't seen you yet?" said the man next to her, who she noticed was also leaning in, hoping to get somebody's attention. He was good looking, with a purposefully scruffy beard and a head of tousled red hair. He was lean, but she liked the way he filled out his shirt.  
  
Leslie shook her head. "One of the many drawbacks of being short!" she said with a smile.  
  
The man smiled at her, showing a mouth of perfectly straight, white teeth, before leaning into the counter with a little more purpose. A few seconds later and he'd succeeded in flagging down a bartender. "Manhattan for me, and a...?" He looked over to her.  
  
She giggled, feeling her cheeks warm up. Damn! That blushing of hers was going to get her in trouble one of these days. "Screwdriver," she said with a smile. "Well vodka is fine. Thank you."  
  
"My name's Will," the man said, giving her a wink so quick that she wasn't sure he'd actually winked at all. Before she knew it, he was pressing a tall glass into her hand and reassuring her that it was on him before sending her back on her way with a little wave.  
  
As she walked back to the table with a little spring in her step an excited tingle on the back of her neck, Jane and Tsung eyed her in that way that young women do.   
  
"Who was that?" Toren lilted.  
  
\--  
  
Hawker was holed up in Chris' room, trying on his new uniform. He flexed and stretched his arms in the tactical shirt, making sure he wouldn't rip out any seams, and did something similar with the pants, squatting and bending and testing their strength. His artificial muscles bulged, and he had to admit that he looked  _damn_  good in black when he got a look at himself in the mirror.   
  
He rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, pulling on the thick gloves. With a chuckle he strummed the armored knuckles along the edge of Chris' desk, quite enjoying the dull and hollow sound. Next came the rest of the armor pieces, their matte coloring eating up the light as he strapped them on with thick velcro. The finishing touch: a half-face black balaclava that sat around his thick neck, to be pulled up over his mouth and nose.  
  
In the mirror, Hawker the SWAT officer looked like a menacing shadow.  
  
Which was just how he and his dick liked it.

 

* * *

 

 

Rivulets of sweat ran down Chris's face, making tails in the dust on his cheeks. With a grunt he pulled upward, his muscled arms flexing as his legs kicked. He felt the rough concrete pressing against his shirt and tugging the collar down around his neck as he scrabbled up over the edge. Another kick into open air and he pulled himself to the top of one of a ruined building. Brushing the dirt off, he stood triumphantly on the top of the four story structure.  
  
No one to cheer him, no witnesses. Chris climbed onto the ledge, his toes in the open air. The fear of falling, the adrenaline rush from the danger filling him. That thumping of blood in his ears! "Heh heh haha.." A nervous, somewhat confident giggle. He opened his arms, forcing himself to stand there and endure his instinct screaming to him how he was about to fall and dash his brains out on the ground of the crash room. Heavy breaths pushed past his smiling lips.  
  
\---  
  
"His name is Will and he's cute!" answered Wen.  
  
"Pffft. He's a small fry, and a jerk. If you all will excuse me, I think that's my tinder." Corey got on his unsteady feet and made his way toward a pretty blond who'd been eyeing him. His broad shoulders and confident smile had her blushing and pressing against him in moments.  
  
"One day he's gonna get what's coming to him." Ferdinand grumbled.  
  
"Jealous?" asked Jane, the beer dip cowering before her hunger.   
  
"Just wish I could pull girls like he does." Admitted the b-class pilot.  
  
Wen joined in on the assault on the pretzels and dip, pushing back her drink. "He seems harmless enough. WHat do ya think?"  
  
Toren noticed that this 'Will' character kept looking over at their table. "Not sure. You should stay with us. Besides, they have cheese-bacon-fries!"  
  
\---  
  
Urkan yawned, putting his feet up on the chair opposite as he laced his robotic fingertips together. He wore an augmented reality visor and flicking eye movement is enough to move information. Relaxing in the center room of the temporary Air Force suite, he coordinated reports with Ashlan. Robert Ashlan, the large bear-like munitions officer quietly picked up one of the many tablets on the table.  
  
"I just got another guilty text from my husband." Ashlan grumbled, pushing back his thick blond hair. "I told him he's welcome to visit Chicago."  
  
Urkan snorted in diresion. "Please. You married a cowboy. If there's more then 3 cars on the road then it's 'traffic.' He's terrified of cities."  
  
"I did! He can fill out chaps too.."  
  
"Ugh, TMI."  
  
"I love him, you're just jealous no girl wants to date a man with vibrating fingers."  
  
"Oh god will you ever let me live that down?"  
  
"Not as long as you keep mocking the man who lasso'd me." Ashlan pursed his lips and made kissing noises toward Urakan.  
  
"ANYWAY!" Urkan spoke loudly, changing the subject with volume "You think we're set for tomorrow?"  
  
"I believe so. It's been minutes sense Lance texted me. I never thought I'd see an AI with a crush."  
  
"He's not crushing on Celn. He's just eager for some of that S-Class grey matter! He's gonna get up in that brain-meat."  
  
"I am not sure. Celn's a cute little guy.."  
  
"Hawker owns him, he's just on loan to Lance."  
  
Ashlan laughed then, hard enough to get tears in his eyes. "Oh wow. Oh, oh I could see that going all sorts of ways."  
  
"ANYWAY! We should be able to rate him after this. I'm still thinking he's up in the weird letters."  
  
"Mmmm. What do you suppose that'll do to Lance?"  
  
Urkan tilted his head, looking over at the large form of Ashlan as information flooded the AR goggles. "THAT, that is why I don't really know. There is so little data on the matter, at least that anyone bothered to write down and not classify. But I did send you the articles and the paper I found?"  
  
Ashlan wiped the tears from his eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't recall. Remind me about.." vrrt vrrt vrrt went his phone. "..FFS Lance! I'm going to put you on mute once my duty cycle is over. You can blow up my phone for another 12 minutes and that's it!" He typed a furious text.  
  
"Pretty much that there is no common variance. You'd have complete mental integration, a single mind that is both AI and human. You can expect best performance of the AI and equipment." he brought his hands out, flexing his fingers. "The paper goes in-depth about 3 unnamed individuals. Two T classes and one E class. The Ts could reliable push machinery and AI beyond what should be possible, like adrenaline."  
  
"Overclocking? Wait, you said machinery? Like.. a T-class would make Lance run faster then top speed?"  
  
"Supossidly. The E delved more into the AI itself, twisting programming. That unnamed individual was a criminal, could take any AI and have it go psychopathic in minutes or hours. But before the AI went crazy, it'd preform fantastically even when not hooked up. Maybe there is no difference between E and T, other then psychosis." Urkan shrugged.  
  
"Rarer than Dardick ammo then?"  
  
"We are talking one in a billion? Maybe that high. And you'd have to implanted to find out, get wires shoved into your brain. And hope it doesn't kill you."  
  
Ashlan muted Lance before the 8041 could text back. "Implantation mortality isn't that bad! You never hear about recruits dieing anymore, not like during the war."  
  
"Eh. You're probably right. It's closed enough to eight and I decree we are officially off duty. How about wings and beer?" The locals had invited them out earlier, but he still wasn't sure about mingling with them too much.  
  
"I've already got an uber on the way!"  
  
\---  
  
Chris scrubbed clean for what was his.. fourth? shower of the day. He appreciated the short hairstyle now, he'd never have a dry head with his current training regime. It felt good to get away from everything for a while. Nothing in his head, no one shouting at him. He missed the way his brain would go numb on a trip. Beer, spirits, weed.. they weren't the same. The opiates that Hawker fed him were rather pleasent, but the bottle is almost empty and he knew that there were no more coming once it was dry.   


* * *

 

 

The balaclava didn't want to stay put on his face - human skin was tackier and unless he didn't move his head, the garment kept sliding down his smoother metallic visage. He tugged out the neck of it to get a better look at the hem. "Hm," he grunted to the empty room. Colburn probably had some gasket maker or some such he could line the inside with. Hell, a nice bead of hot glue would probably even do the trick.  
  
For now, though, the pair of untinted shooting goggles that came with the ensemble would do to keep the fabric in place. He looked at himself in the mirror again, smiling behind the mask. If he were a human, he would  _not_  want to run into him in a dark alley. His armored forearms were now a foot and a half in circumference, the gloves made his hands look almost as big as the Vanguard's, and his yellow glowing eyes looked especially sinister behind the protective eyewear. There was a little bit of glare from the inside, but it wasn't anything he couldn't recalibrate his visual spectrum sensors to compensate for.  
  
Other sensors picked up someone moving about the floor - the Ares' chemical tracers picked up faint whiffs of pheromones and sweat, and instantly he knew it was Chris. Oh, how interesting: he was alone.  
  
He stood and listened as his boy shuffled straight into one of the showers, panting and dragging his feet just the slightest. The scent of fresh, clean, perspiration told Hawker that he'd just come back from some cardio, probably that run he'd mentioned. Good boy, keeping up his exercise. He was going to be just as strong and fit as any other world-class pilot... and he might even be able to put up a little more of a fight in bed. Lewd images percolated through his foreprocessors. Playful struggle morphing into real struggle; a look of trust in the human's eyes broken with genuine worry; cries of pleasure no longer mingling with pain, but being replaced by them. Hawker's thick chub pressed up behind the bullet-resistant groin armor, tenting the denim of his pants as he listened to Chris head into the steam of the shower.   
  
With a self-satisfied grin, Hawker considered the situation. In his pilot's room, so far undetected, all gussied up in his brand-new, shit-kicking SWAT gear, while Chris was sudsing down just a few feet away. In a few moments his boy would wander in here to get dressed in some clean clothes, still none the wiser. And there wasn't another soul on the entire floor. He briefly considered ambushing him in the shower, all told, but decided to wait.  
  
_Frankly, I'd be an idiot not to take advantage of this,_  he thought to himself. He listened for a few more moments, feeling the heat build up in the firming Magnus, and then shut off the light with a gentle click.

\--  
  
Leslie was trying to keep an eye on Will without making it too obvious. He was with two other guys, they quickly learned, at a table a few feet away. The half-asian analog pilot chewed her lip when she caught him glancing back her way too.  
  
Jane snorted, shaking her head, while Toren chuckled. "You're not gonna let it go, are you?"  
  
Ferd looked over at Will, still feeling a little put-off at how easy Mr. Becker seemed to have it. "I think you could do better than that, Wen. He's only a 6."  
  
"He is not!" Leslie said, flustered and giggling. "I mean, he's no Haw--"  
  
"He's no  _who_  now?" Ferd said, face lighting up.  
  
"H-he's no... H...an. Han Solo. Harrison Ford,  _duh_. He's no Harrison Ford."  
  
The others exchanged looks. "That's not what I heard," Ferdinand laughed.  
  
"Yeah," Jane piped in, "It sounded like you were going to say  _Hawker_!"  
  
"I was not!" Leslie said a little too loudly. A beat passed, and the analog pilot let her head fall to the table when it was clear that she'd lost, brown hair splayed out across the wood, and groaned. "OK, I was."  
  
Everyone erupted into laughter except for her. So the secret was out... or at least, part of it. She still had an opportunity to save face, at least!  
  
"Holy shit, Wen, I had no idea you were into that kind of thing!"  
  
"You always seemed like such a good girl!"  
  
"Yeah, but it's always the good girls that go after the bad boys."  
  
"Did you just call the captain a  _bad boy_?"  
  
"Does he  _not_  look like he's from the wrong side of the tracks?"  
  
"He looks more like a dancer for  _Thunder Down Under_  if you ask me."  
  
Leslie lifted her head from the table, trying to hide her bright red blush. "OK, OK, you can stop now. But don't you tell me you haven't gotten a good long look at that ass."  
  
Jane wiggled her eyebrows. "Oh you don't have to tell me twice. I've gotten some good long looks at  _his_  good n' long, too."  
  
Ferdinand groaned. "Ay dios mio, get me outta here." With that he stood up and went over to the bar. The girls laughed, and Leslie was relieved that she hadn't accidentally spilled the fact that she  _slept_  with the captain. Against her will, though, her mind went back to that night, replaying her memories of him pinning her to the wall, that enormous tool pushing her right up against her physical limits and no further, the patience and intensity in his face as he watched her come again and again with rapt attention...  
  
Her hands warmed and there was a tingling in her belly at remembering how he felt, and her panties were moistening. Leslie Wen swallowed and looked away. Eventually her eyes found Will's again, and she knew that, while Hawker's invitation stood wide open, it wasn't going to be a good idea for her to fixate on him. He was taken, he was her boss, and he was an AI with a dick that just kept going for Pete's sake!  
  
"I'm going over there," Leslie said, just as she started to remember the way his fingers had tasted before slipping out of her room. Holy crap she was working herself up, over here!   
  
"Aw c'mon, not you too!"  
  
"His friends look cute."  
  
"Nuh uh, no. I am never picking up a man from a bar. Don't care how good-looking he is."  
  
"Suit yourself!"

 

* * *

 

 

Water off, towel around his waist he walked through the lounge. Damn quiet, the TV was even off! Where is everyone? Chris dripped water on the floor as he peered into a few dorms. Hmmm. "Guess I missed the memo." he announced to the empty room. He walked into his small dorm and threw his clothes into a growing heap by the door. Pushing the door shut with a foot, he whipped the towel off began going for the closet. And that's when one of the big shadows in the room  _moved._


	31. Night Moves*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Chris pretends to get into trouble while Wen gets into real trouble.

Hawker shuttered his optics when Chris finally entered the room, otherwise he'd have spotted the glowing yellow eyes too soon. It wasn't difficult to orient himself with the Ares' other systems, and right now the mech was busy experiencing his oblivious pilot - his target - as a boy-shaped mass of heat. Cheeks flushed from the steam, he dropped the towel to reveal more spots of warmth. Some of them very... touchable.   
  
When he moved over to the closet to grab some clothes, Hawker couldn't help himself! Yellow optics onlined, and he moved. Fast. One gloved hand grabbed him by the back of the neck, the other swiftly took up both of his wrists, and in an instant Chris was shoved painfully into the bed, face-first, with a strong, heavy leg on each side of his own. The MOLLE webbing on Hawker's armored thighs was rough on the boy's freshly pampered skin.  
  
" **Get down and shut up!** " he ordered in his best full-throated snarl, before pressing his covered mouth to Chris' ear and his groin armor into the boy's oh-god-so-fuckable naked ass. "You fucked up, scabber. Now it's my job to make sure you wish you were never born." It was Hawker's full intention to dirty-talk Chris into admitting just about anything that he wanted - he was sure the kid would confess to traveling back in time to assassinate Kennedy if it got their dicks hard. "How about a little  _breaking and entering?_ "

 

* * *

 

Jane watched as Wen slid out of the booth, leaving her alone with the decimated remains of the pretzels and dip. Wen is sweet on Hawker, well, about time she got sweet on someone! Wen could draw any eye that appreciated the female form, but she tended to rebuff most who came after her. Becker nearly got a black eye when he'd tried. Jane eyed the plate of cheesy potato skins arriving with a grin, pushing out her empty beer glass to the end of the table, wanting to fill up on delicious carbs.

The warm sounds of the bar washed into a sea of noise as Leslie got close to Will. He gave her another killer smile, his lips pulling back to reveal some gleaming ivories while his eyes seemed to glimmer. Or maybe it was the vodka. He nodded his head toward a quieter bit of the pub. The pair ambled over, his touch warm on the small of her back. "I was wondering if your friends were going to let me talk to you." he opened with a joking tone.

"Oh, they're fine!" She waved a hand dismissively. "You know what work friends are like."

"Yeah." He is tall, about 6-1 and fit. Even with it being winter he had on jeans that showed off his pleasing shape (She'd been checking out his butt) and a rather comfortable button-down with a sweater-vest on top. "It can get kind of funny depending on who is in that day. What's your name?"

His sweater-vest is blue and brown with a white background, little diamond patters that repeat over and over. "Leslie. I haven't seen you in before. I'm a bit of a regular here."

He nodded up and down, the left half of his mouth pulling back in a grin. "Second time actually. I've been looking about for a new place to haunt. And wow are you cute. Just, weaponized adorable."

Leslie gave an eyeroll and pushed back more of her drink. Okay, yes she is cute. Well, two could play that complimenting game. "Well, you are handsome. And tall."

"Yup. Although you're on the shorter end of things to be fair." His right hand slid around her back, the left holding his drink. He brought her in and held her close, fingers stroking in slow circles. "Are you hungry? Food's nice here."

\---------

Chris froze as a good 500 pounds of geared-up Hawker impacted him and put his small frame down hard! THe mech's clothing felt aggressive and uncaring against his bare skin, there were big smooth sections up against his back. He tried to pull down with both arms but no dice. Hawker is far stronger with the Ares's potent mechanics.

"Hey, I know the guy who owns the place. He said I could come over!" Chris hissed, able to twist his torso a little, and that is it! Of course he is getting hard, and old memories of breaking and entering sparked in his mind. "So just take your mitts off me and back the fuck off!" He spoke in his best delinquent voice, knowing that the caviler tone would piss the captain off to no end..

 

* * *

 

Chris froze as a good 500 pounds of geared-up Hawker impacted him and put his small frame down hard! The mech's clothing felt aggressive and uncaring against his bare skin, there were big smooth sections up against his back. He tried to pull down with both arms but no dice. Hawker is far stronger with the Ares's potent mechanics. He grunted and snarled as he tried to rotate his legs, but the padded knees of the ares kept his legs spread.  
  
He felt the heated bulge up against him, grinding in a lewd display of power and authority. Hawker is acting like an angry cop! It sent waves of terror and joy through him. He smirked, falling into a role he'd once been.  
  
"Hey, I know the guy who owns the place. He said I could come over!" Chris hissed, able to twist his torso a little, and that is it! Of course he is getting hard, and old memories of breaking and entering sparked in his mind. "So take your mitts off me and back the fuck up!" He spoke in his best delinquent voice, knowing that the caviler tone would piss the captain off to no end.  
  
"Besides, feels like you could lose a few pounds  _Officer_. You're a real pain!"

 

* * *

 

Hawker's dick plumped up nice and firm when Chris opened his cute little mouth and started talking back.  _Good boy,_  he thought approvingly. 

_"Besides, feels like you could lose a few pounds **Officer**. You're a real pain!"_

The mech bared down on him harder, shoving his face back into the mattress with terrible force. He made sure the boy would feel every fiber in the weave of his gloves. "You don't know when to quit, do you, scab? Not even with 500 pounds' worth of the law ready to kick your fucking teeth in." He pressed his nose against Chris' temple. "Gonna make a cute little bootlicker when I'm through with you." He ground into him a little more, liking the way Chris was being pushed further up the bed. "Smells like you stay away from the nasty shit," he growled. "Good, because I don't fuck 'em if they've got crackne."

That groin protector was going to have to come off soon. Fuck, he was so hard already, it almost hurt! But Hawker was getting into the role (was it a role, though?) and he wanted to draw this delectable little scene on for as long as possible. Chris was good at playing perp.

\--

"Yup. Although you're on the shorter end of things to be fair." His right hand slid around her back, the left holding his drink. He brought her in and held her close, fingers stroking in slow circles. "Are you hungry? Food's nice here."

Leslie Wen was on  _fire_. This was amazing. She'd  _never_  gotten this cozy with a stranger so quickly, before! But now, it was so easy. She wondered if it had anything to do with her night with Hawker, but remembered that she had promised to try and keep him out of her mind like that. What mattered now was that she was with Will. And that Will was hot.

"The food here is uh-may-zing," she giggled. "Their fish and chips are to die for."

"Really?" He said, smiling. "So many places mess it up nowadays, with that fake stuff that they use."

Wen shook her head adamantly. "Nope. I remember fish. And this isn't just as good, it's  _better_."

The man looked like she'd blown his mind, and she secretly hoped that it was a convincing sell. As soon as a server came around, though, Will flagged her down and ordered two baskets of fish and chips for the table. She gave him a look and he shrugged. "I'm not gonna  _not_  try them after a testimonial like that."

She laughed some more, feeling warmer now because of the alcohol, and because of the nice arm around her waist. They chatted a little; she asked what he did, he told her he was in advertising; he asked her, and she said she was a pilot.

"You don't have an implant," he noted.

"I do things the old-fashioned way. With my hands." Leslie realized a little too late the suggestiveness of her comment. 

Will raised his brows as he took a sip of his drink. "What other things do you do with your hands?"

Leslie turned beet red, she was sure of it. But before she got a chance to answer, he laughed and set down his empty glass. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable," he said. "I just... happen to think you're very cute."

Yep, she  _was_  beet red. But he seemed genuine, and his grip on her loosened in anticipation of her drawing away, but she didn't. She didn't see a reason to. "Thank you," she said, winking at him. "I happen to think you're kinda cute too."

He gave her a bemused, but knowing sort of look that she mistook for simple good humor. "Let's see where the night takes us, Leslie."

 

* * *

 

Chris winced as Hawker palmed his skull and pressed him down with the kind of pressure that he swore he could feel the floor of his small bedroom. Things in his neck popped and he moaned out in appreciation of the way his captain could be brutal in ways no human ever could. Hawker's covered mouth moved right against his cheek, the balaclava rubbing against his skin. It had that smell that all new clothing did, that formaldehyde scent. The fabric felt like it as designed to grate against him.   
  
The lewd and oversized codpiece slammed into his ass, the agressive bucking of the mechanical stud told him all what is in store. It's ceramic and kevlar surface ground and spread his cheeks like the bluntest of tools. He is pinned and was only able to speak when his boss manhandled him further up the bed. "Shut up and book me  _officer_ " he could glaze the word in disrespect in loathing, "or get off! All you SWAT-types got pinky-pricks from all the roids you eat. Bet you couldn't make a tent outta a matchbook."  
  
\----  
  
The fish is still good! Despite trying to play it cool, Will completely cleaned up the battered cod and dug into the chips. "You weren't joking. These are fantastic!" He gave her a smile, the pair well into their third round of drinks.  
  
"Want to share dessert? They have a chocolate brownie that just.. mmmpf.." good food, good company.  
  
"I think I do." He bounced his eyebrows at the suggestion of decadent food.  
  
-  
  
Ferdinand had two drinks in had as he sat down opposite Jane. One untouched, the other being rapidly consumed.   
  
"Struck out with the brunette and the raven-hair?" inquired the female pilot, having consumed her fill of cheesy food. At least until more room appeared in her stomach.  
  
"..yes."  
  
"You know why?"  
  
".. because Becker is working the room?" he finished his drink, then looked at the one he'd bought-and had returned by the brunette.  
  
"Okay, I'll give you that. But it's because you're just looking to play hide the master sword."  
  
"That's all Corey is doing too. You think the.." she looked quick to confirm, "..girl he has on each arm is going to get a call from him again?"  
  
"Oh don't tell me that shit. I'm giving up on women, going to get me a robo-wife. Chris has the right idea." he began to drown his sorrow further.  
  
"You have to make a girl feel special, you want to make that hookup special."  
  
"Too much work. I just want someone to touch my penis."

 

* * *

 

_"Shut up and book me **officer** , or get off! All you SWAT-types got pinky-pricks from all the roids you eat. Bet you couldn't make a tent outta a matchbook."_

Hawker smiled behind the balaclava, and he wished he had a gun right about now. Unloaded of course - or maybe not - but he wanted to listen to Chris' breath hitch in his throat at the feeling of a barrel pressing to the back of his head. Next time.

"You've got quite a mouth on you," the mech grunted. "I'll bet you know how to use it." He drew back quickly, grabbing Chris by the ankles to roughly flip him around onto his back. The shorter hair was impossible to get a proper hold on now, much to his dismay, but where there's a will, there's a way. Hawker straddled him again, grabbing the boy by the neck to pull his whole body upward, just high enough to be at eye level with his hips. "Play nice and I'll make sure you don't wind up somebody's cumrag down at Metro Correctional. We got a lot of Cossack Barbarians locked up in there - I hear they like to make their bitch boys bleed."

Hawker's hands went to the groin armor, pulling it to the side along the belt just enough to reveal the zipper to his fly. He grabbed Chris behind the head and pressed his face hard into the fabric, grinding against that soft cheek.

"I'd take the protection if I were you."

\--

"You give up too easy," Jane said with a laugh. "Defeat's not a sexy look on a man."

Ferdinand was on his phone, smiling bitterly to himself. "Here we go. How's she look?" He held up his phone, which was showing a web store for a sexbot company. On the screen was a rudimentary android with an uncannily life-like face, probably some synthskin, with plump lips, long fake eyelashes, and a head of black and blue hair. Jane just rolled her eyes.

"Might as well pay an escort if you've got that kind of money, Morales. Trust me, you'll appreciate the warm hands."

"I could get the self-warming skin for an extra $200..."

"Do they have male models?"

"Yep."

"Hehe. Lemme see."

\--

"What are you doing later?" Will asked, pushing the basket of pretzel her way.

"Later?" Leslie said, hiding her surprise behind a coy smile. "I was just gonna head back home with my friends, I guess."

"You should come by my place. Got some snacks, better liquor... gonna have some people over, play some games. You like games?"

Her mind immediately went to video games. "Oh, yeah. I mean, who doesn't these days?" she laughed. "You going to do some multiplayer stuff?"

"Yeah, you might say that. Would you be ready to go in 15?"

"Sure! I'll be back, lemme go tell my friends what's up."

"Don't take too long," Will said with a charming smile. "I've got nowhere to rest my hand now."

She giggled, feeling good. "I'll just be a second."

 

* * *

 

"Yanna, Celn has one. No one really gives him shit about it." grumbled Ferdinand, trying to get his phone back from Jane.

"Realist snapping action from her pussy. God this is depressing--" Jane stopped, relinquishing the phone. "The Captain isn't.. isn't just a sexbot." she admitted.

"So the fact that his dildo has legs and a job makes the difference?"

"Hawker has a personality!" Jane grumped, not admitting the part about how Hawker is a kevlar stud of astounding proportions.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Ferd made the mistake of looking toward the door as Becker headed out. With a ten on the right and a nine on the left. "That fucker. When I go out with him, no one else takes anything home but a receipt!" He lamented into his beer.

"Where would you keep it? No one would stop giving you crap if you had it at the station." Jane tried to distract him.

"Been thinking about getting a condo."

"But then you'd have to pay utilities and money for a mortgage!"

"Blarrrrgh!"

"Hey!" chirped Wen, all smiles and blowing away the storm clouds of funk. "I'm uh, going with Will."

Ferdinand put his face down in his arms, murmuring about the sad state of his sex life.

Jane rolled her eyes at Ferd. "Have a good time, he looks cute."

"Struck out again?" 

"--shut up..--"

"Later!"

A bounce in her step, she found Will having covered the tab and waiting for her. "Uber will be here soon. What's wrong with your friend?"

"He's just lazy."

Holding her hand, they walked toward the door to get their coats.

\---

"Oh what's that? You  _want_  something from me?" Chris allowed his voice to become sleazy and lecherous. As if him sucking Hawker off was going to be a problem for the cop! His heat seeped through the fabric, lips and teeth teasing the throbbing girth behind. His hands and arms ached from the rough treatment and the day's labors, but they aren't so far gone that he can't unzip that barely-contained bulge.

The magnus presses outward, smacking him in the face with enough force to leave a mushroom-shaped red mark. He can't help it, a pleased moan escaped his lips. "Mmm, you're lookin' exposed there officer. Best be careful or I might handle your weapon!" Hands, lips and tongue touch and apply pressure to the stiffening girth.

 

* * *

 

_"Oh what's that? You want something from me?"_

Hawker grinned behind the balaclava, optics gleaming behind the goggles with rapt interest. He brushed the kevlar knuckles of his gloved hand against Chris' cheek, leaving a red mark behind them as the boy reached up to pull down the zipper. 

Cool air hit the sensors along his shaft, followed by the dull slap against his boy's face, right up against that red spot. Warmth crept up from the root and a little gush of pre oozed out and down the head, stimulating him more. "Mmh."

_"Mmm, you're lookin' exposed there officer. Best be careful or I might handle your weapon!"_

Hawker wasn't quite ready to play nice, though. Quite unconcerned with Chris' long, tiring day, the SWAT mech wanted to lose himself in his more thrilling emotional subroutines, giving into the scalding heat of his lust. Fans whirred loudly to life, clicking on suddenly as he unceremoniously shoved himself past the human's teeth. The hot, velvety slick of Chris' tongue undulated against the underside of his thick cock, and with a growl Hawker settled a massive hand on each side of the boy's head.

" _I_  do the handling around here," he grunted deeply, watching as Chris took a moment to catch up. With that, he withdrew and fiercely plunged back in, head tickling his uvula. "Let's see what it takes to make you gag, you pathetic little perp."

 

* * *

 

When you're with another person, there is a sympathy for the weakness of skin, flesh and bone. If Hawker had such emotional restrictions, they were being ignored right now. Chris felt his skull compressed by the gloved grip and he winced with pain. Opening his mouth to make another comment, his boss had a better use for his lips.

The magnus is brutal in size alone, forcing him to open his jaw past what is  _comfortable._  The length is punishing, even with the broad and blunt glans silencing him there are so many inches left to be put to use. The synthetic lubricant drooled out in dollops, coating the inside of his mouth and tongue with it's silicone flavor. They'd run out of the flavored stuff, and there is a delicious perverseness of Hawker's output being mechanical.

The scabber suckled, slurping lewdly, noisily swallowing around his Captain's tool. As Hawker insistently pressed forward, Chris shuffled backward to help get things lined up. There is a quick and deep inhale, then something more important the breathing has happened-- pleasing that synthetic dick. He swallows, neck visibly bulging as it entered the tight and massaging throat of the pilot.

 

* * *

 

Hawker didn't quite know how to be gentle - not in a real way, at least; an affectionate way - and it was times like this that made him question the merit of ever learning how. Roughness just felt too fucking  _good_. Why the hell would he ask, when he could just  _take_  what he wanted instead, and be rewarded so handsomely?

Chris all but choked on his thick, demanding, battering ram of a cock. The boy's mouth would have benefited from being unhingable, like a snake's, but the strain looked good on him. The hollowed cheeks, sucking and slurping, the flared nostrils as he fought to get enough air around his master's tool. Another slow, unstoppable push, and his pilot's gullet opened up... and downward. The mech wanted to hilt himself. Some old, strange lines of code goaded him toward it like an event horizon. Who wrote that? A programmer with a sick sense of humor, or Ishcheyka?

" _Brat' eto,"_  he growled experimentally in Russian. " _Takoy poleznyy syn._  Mm. I love how hard you have to work for me, kid. It's a struggle for your little human body, but you're so eager to be a good bootlicker." Another rough shove, and Chris' throat jerked. "You don't know how satisfying it is to watch them to fall in line."

Chris' mouth was pure unadulterated  _heaven_. Teeth grazed the synth skin, and he dripped with hot saliva. Another lazy pump of precum dribbled out of his cockhole, coating the boy's throat. Hawker decided that tonight was the night his pilot would learn to deepthroat him, and  _finally_  the mech would get to bury himself to the hilt inside that warm, pliable, eager little body. The captain hoped for Chris's sake that he didn't have a gag reflex.

 

* * *

 

Chris didn't speak Russian. He has no idea what Hawker is talking about, but that really isn't important. WHat matters is the incredible girth opening his jaws at the moment. Still nude from the shower, it is easy to start playing with his own dick as he pleased his boss.

More russian words as the big bot began thrusting. The SWAT clothing creaked, the new leather making deliciously organic shounds as Hawker's servos whirred. Dick, many inches of it began to bang into Chris's throat. There's a trick to deep throating, well two. First is to poke and tease and play away your gag reflex. While that might happen one day, Chris is relying on the second option, swallowing.

_GLUP._  Audible, noising swallowing. He had to tilting his head back, giving the fat glans of the magnus someplace to go. 

From the outside, Hawker could  _see_  where he is bulging out his boy's neck. He knew Chris wasn't breathing either, choosing to please the mech rather than take in air. It's the right choice, but the real fun will come once he starts to struggle. Once he made a length of sweet and soft tunnel, the next thrust from the Ares's hips passed the double digit mark! The boy's nose no rested close enough to the pants to get hit by the spread fabric of the fly. 

Chris felt like a sword swallower, his neck and head are rooted in place by that monster-sized fucktool.

 

* * *

 

So pliable! So yielding! Hawker knew the story of Pinocchio and the humans' obsession with AIs who wanted to be human themselves. Laughable. He'd never trade his metal for flesh - not when it meant he could fuck like this.

Chris' hands are on his enormous thighs, pushing away or pulling closer it didn't really matter when you were coming so close to burying yourself balls deep in your boyfriend for the  _first goddamn time_. It was no velvety ass, but knowing that he was brute-forcing the boy's windpipe shut made his balls twitch. 

His throat muscles massaged the mech's fat shaft, the audible  _ulking_  and  _gulping_  tugging him further down, squeezing better than even the wettest, slickest handjob.  _Oh fuck, kiddo. You're gonna make daddy come so hard._

Chris' head was pinned to the wall, jaw and face craned upwards as the Ares bared down into him hips first, ready to bore straight through him and all the way through to fucking China. Hawker cupped the boy's face when finally,  _finally_ fabric pressed against his skin and Chris' lips strained around his girthy root, helplessly smearing him with drool. The kid jerked a little, body beginning to fight the violation, but Hawker held still as iron.

"Choke, boy," he ordered quietly, calmly; a betrayal of the raging lust burning up his CPUs. Optics bared down into Chris' eyes, as bright as gold and with none of the warmth. "That's an order."

 

* * *

 

Chris never honestly thought he'd be around for this moment, he'd been regretting buying Hawker such a large version of the magnus. He's thought he'd never get all of it inside. And damn it, he WANTED to take his boss big dick down to the base! And now he could feel all fourteen inches twitching in his throat. 

The rough sensation of the zipper on the fly of Hawker's pants pressed hard into his cheeks. The swell of his captain's nuts pushed into his chin through the pants. Fuck yes his robotic bruise is deliciously hung.

_"Choke, boy."_

Chris's fascination stopped and he looked all the way up, past the shelf of Hawker's pecs to see that horney and cruel expression. The grip on his head might as well be permanent, and the back of his skull rested against the wall. He is pinned, airway clogged with over a foot of dick.

Did his boss really want this? The idea both aroused and terrified him. He could already feel the ache in his lungs. His nose burned and his eyes began to water. His hands hand been busy touching his own dick, but now they came up and began to push on Hawker's thighs. He couldn't think anymore, all that mattered is getting free!

Fists punch and push on armored steel thighs. The hot throat turns and twists and squeezes gloriously around the magnus. His heart rate is peaking, and his blood oxygen level began to drop. HIs legs kicked and his hands desperately struggled against unyielding wrists and hands. He IS choking on that monster cock, and after a good minute he's in a full on  _panic!_

 

* * *

 

Chris' face changed at Hawker's words, and maybe it was the fact that he wasn't human, or maybe it was that such a sizable portion of him was still Ishcheyka, or maybe it was because he was beyond fucked up by anyone's measure of compassion and empathy, but Hawker knew that this is where he wanted to be the whole time.  _This_  is the look he wanted to see in Chris' eyes since the first time he raised his voice at the kid as he did laps around the motor pool.  _This_  was the scalding heat that kept him warm all those bitter months at Irkutsk.

Dr. Bea Morris would have loved to have him hooked up at a time like this, intently surveying the readouts of his emotional subroutines in real-time. The multiplicitous nature of his personality would have been apparent, the fracturing of him into two competing identities struggling not for dominance but for reunification. It was times like this that Hawker found he had dangerously little to give a damn about beyond the immediate thrill of playing  _god_.

The boy's vitals gave a jump, and the mech can feel Chris' increasing heart rate as well as if his hand had been on his neck. He could feel the quickening pulse through his tightly sheathed cock, and already the machine is close. Yellow eyes don't take themselves off his pilot's face for a single instant, watching with enraptured pleasure as the expression goes from lust to animalistic fear. For a brief flash of an instant Chris is no more important to him than a head of cattle being led to slaughter, and he fights the urge to hit him in punishment for his pathetic struggle.  _That's what you get for needing to breathe!_

Ishcheyka wavered, though, and Hawker stepped away from that cliff's edge, confidence somehow unbroken. He'd be nice, this time. Reasonable.

"Just a little more..." he cooed with a deep throaty groan, voice kind but hand still harsh as he held Chris down as the boy began to fight. Seconds away from coming, and just as the boy's fist was about to smash against his metal thigh, Hawker pulled out, watching as his massive length drew out of his boy's throat, covered in thick ropes of spit. "Unnh!" he grunted when the cool air was on him. " _Fuck!_ " 

 

* * *

 

His eyes watered, his lungs burned as if they'd been pumped full of fire. All he could think is that Hawker is going to make him pass out on his tool!

The magnus pulled out from his mouth. The fat and turgid tool kept pulling out, each inch agonizing as it blocked his airway. He could feel the synthetic spurts of precum, Hawker must about be able to pump a load directly into his stomach. Finally, the blunt glans entered his mouth with a loud and lewd squelch!

Chris hung from his boss's hands, his head bobbing as he sucked in a desperate breath of air. Almost immediately, he began to cough and retch as thick white streamers flew and smeared onto his face and chest. His body shook as he coughed more, alternating between breathing and clearing his throat. He spat out drool, then pulled in a huge lung-inflating breath of air.

"fuck.. just *cough*.. fuck.."

 

* * *

 

Yellow eyes looked on as Chris hacked and sputtered and wetly panted below, and a thought occurred to him - Chris was an insatiable little fucktoy, sure, but the boy gave a mighty big damn about the mech too.  _You need this because you love me, don't you?_  he thought. It was the only reason he could think of; the thing that separated a broken detainee from a picture-perfect sub.  _Putting yourself through hell just for me..._

Gloved fingers caressed one of the pilot's spit-smeared cheeks as the hard, throbbing head of the Magnus brushed the other. Hawker was so fucking ready to come at the sight before him, at the realization slowly making its way through his head, that another plunge back into that mouth would empty his heavy balls then and there. 

"God I love it when you look like this," he rumbled deeply, voice thick with lust. "Small..." Hawker moved his hands to Chris' hips, pulling him down the bed and flat onto his back. "Fragile..." Next he tugged down the top of the balaclava to reveal his mouth, with which he promptly locked onto the boy's shoulder, sucking, licking, biting. He missed the bruises on his skin. "Obedient," he grunted into Chris' neck. "And all mine."

Hawker parted Chris' legs as his mouth wandered about the human's collarbones and leanly toned arms. Further south, the Magnus slid slowly against Chris' rock-hard little shaft.

"What would you do for me?" he asked after a few moments, pulling his mouth away to look the brunette in his glazed, blown-out eyes while his hips lazily rutted against Chris' soft skin. "How far would a loyal pilot go for his captain?"

 

* * *

 

Chris's dick jumped, twitching and throbbing as the fourteen inches of magnus dwarfed and slid past. He wiped his mouth as his boss covered and bit and tasted his freshly bathed skin.

_"And all mine."_ "I'm yours Hawker, all yours." he breathed, hands stroking over the broad shoulders and armored back of the machine.

_"What would you do for me? How far would a loyal pilot go for his captain?"_  The thick thighs of the robot, clad in the SWAT pants,ensured Chris's legs were open and his body vulnerable to the slick size of the magnus as it probed about.

The young pilot looked upward into those golden eyes, breath pausing as he swallowed. His hands slid down, holding the heavy robotic cock against his own. "Anything for you boss." He smiled, a look as cold as the one beaming down at him on his face. The heat and intense jabs from his rolling hips ground his shaft up against the one he'd bough for the brutal machine.

"I got this for you.." his hands squeezed the magnus just below the glans. "..to use on me." with an exhaled he licked over his lips. "As long as I'm yours, then it's okay."

Little shudders ran through him as he groaned, loving the sensation of being so small. Hawker held every ounce of power. His metal body, already invulnerable to a mere man, is clad in the kind of gear that'd keep a human safe from extreme punishment. And he lay nude, utterly weak and soft. "What ever you want. Kill. Run. Hide. Choke out on your tool, just to get you off!"

 

* * *

 

_Anything for you boss._

_As long as I'm yours, then it's okay._

_As long as I'm yours..._

Hawker felt some things, wordless emotions, but among them was a pointed desire to hilt himself in the boy and  _soon_. Weeks, months, of possessing the tool, and he still had so little to show for it! He would fix that.  _Daddy_  would fix that - would make his little boy feel good and used. 

The mech bent his head and captured Chris' mouth in a strangely tender kiss. But it was firm, and long, and no less domineering than one full of teeth and tongue and bruised lips.  _My want is inevitable,_  it said.  _And I want **you**._

"God, you're perfect," he growled, teasing the boy's hole with his swollen, dripping glans. "I couldn't have asked for a better submissive, or a better pilot." He pushed, gazing intently at Chris' face as his cock pushed past that needy ring of muscle, throbbing, tightening around him. "Mmmh. Fuck... you're always so tight for me, kiddo." He kissed him again, planting his hands along where he'd previously sunk in his teeth, angering the skin and sending new pain shooting through the tender flesh. Hawker pushed in to a depth of 3 inches, each of them slow and grueling, but they were 3 inches of maddening pleasure. With his left hand he massaged his fat balls through the cordura of his pants - they were heavy with cum and ready for emptying into the nearest receptacle!

 

* * *

 

Chris's nude legs are spread wide, Hawker's immense thighs pressing on the undersides of the small pilot's knees. THe tough fabric would leave red marks, abrasions if vigorously rubbed on that tender skin. Hawker looked even more immense then normal, the panting and hungry look on the machine's face as it loomed over his own made his dick jump.

**"God, you're perfect."** Chris beamed at the compliment. The smirk on his face said he though as much, he IS perfect for Hawker. They are meant for each other.

And then the brute penetrate his boy.

Chris's face screwed up in pain, teeth clenched as he hissed and his stomach and chest raised as he shook from his shoulders to his toes. He's so warm, so slick and impossibly tight! They'd been working at getting more of the magnus within, but that didn't mean it was easy.

Chris's hands scrabbled, gripping at the sheets of his bed. Tears came from the corners of his eyes, and he sucked in a quaking breath. When he looked up, Hawker is the picture of lust and power. The boss. His man. It felt perversely good to be  _his._

 

* * *

 

Chris' reaction was just what he wanted - it always was. He couldn't sass or smarm or seduce his way out of this, there was no room left for higher faculties when your entire being was focused on the sensation of being pried open with the mech's massive and uncompromising tool, hard and hungry and drooling its need.

"Colburn said no visible marks," Hawker growled, smirking wantonly. "Didn't say anything about your  _insides_."

He relished his boy's whimpering, his panting breaths, his quivering limbs, the sheen of sweat glistening on his freshly showered body. He'd need another after this.

Hawker gave another curt shove, impaling Chris a further inch on the Magnus. A ragged groan left him. "You feel so good wrapped around me, little boy. C'mon, show daddy how much you can take." A massive hand, still gloved, went for Chris' soft throat. His fingers found their way to his windpipe and gave the fragile, crunchy structure a little squeeze. "Tell me how much you love it when I fuck you within an inch of your life."

The truth was that Hawker was close, and that he was doing his damndest to drag this out as long as possible. But Chris' tightness, his contracting muscles and velvety heat, his expression of blissful, painful abandon in the face of Hawker's wall of black-clothed metal - all the boy needed to do was put his hands on the root of his boss' dick, his heavy balls, and the mech would have roared out his climax right then and there, unloading more machine seed than Chris' ass could hold.

But this was too fun; would be a shame to let it end so quickly.

 

* * *

 

Chris panted with short and fast breaths; trying to reduce the deep ache and shark jolts of paint that came with taking The Boss. His eyes watered, tears dripped out and ran down his cheeks. The gloved robotic mitt, a hand that can palm his skull, got damp with his tears. He could feel the grippy surface on his skin, the twitching of the padded mechanical actuators as Hawker wanted to just throttle him into unconsciousness.

The immense invasion of his bowels felt like Hawker had a pringles can inside. It thobbed, pulsing with artificial lust as synthetic lubricant emerged and attempted to aid with the painful and eager thrusting.

"AH! AHH!" Chris's chest raised, the sharp pain filled him as the Ares brutally took him. His hands moved from the sheets down to that impossibly large shaft. He felt over where it turned into into a fucktoy, where his burning ring felt as if it is torn in half. His hands worked their way down.. down.. jesus fuck how much more IS there! How were they ever going to properly bang if it is like this each time? 

Those fingers are trying to push back, trying to stop the constant grinding of his delicate insides. Stroking, squeezing, they slip and slide along the whole of that girth; all the way down to where it emerges from the SWAT pants.

Another agonizing lurch, only this time his prostate gets crushed by the broad glans. Chris cried out his bosses name, shaking and weeping as lust and agony worked through him.

 

* * *

 

_Perfect! Fucking **perfect!**_

Hawker knew that deep down, deep in his most primary subroutines and hindprocessors, this is what he was made for. Designed down to the last bolt and byte by the good guys to be their  _bad guy_. All the set pieces were here, arrayed before him like tools before a master tradesman. Coaxing fear, obedience, and submission from human beings is what he was put on this charred and broken Earth to do, and must've been better than any street drug. Chris was giving him so much right now... but humans were made for overclocking, overtaxing, and he could give even  _more_  right? There was  _always_  more to give.

Unbeknownst to Hawker, though, something inside of him was slowly shearing itself apart. Two equal but opposing drives, two completely irreconcilable motives struggled to co-exist; that struggle sent out tremors, quiet and imperceptible to the untrained observer. But the shifting tectonics was building pressure, and it wouldn't be long before something had to give.

Warm, tremulous hands on his fat shaft was bliss as the boy shook and blinked back tears. The mech's hard yellow optics raked down his fragile form - muscle here, softer flesh there, a bone rising close to the surface - and he growled with satisfaction. No more this time, they were already nearing an unprecedented 8 inches and the both of them seemed near ready to explode. His dick throbbed under Chris' hand, firm and heavy like a real beating pulse. 

Hawker's name was on Chris' ragged lips, and the mech decided that they would try for 9 next time. He withdrew about halfway, giving his boy some respite for a few moments before pushing back in and hitting that wonderful little spot in him again. He decided that he wanted Chris to come, so he dragged his gloved fingers away from his neck, down, down, brushing and pinching a pink nipple along the way, before gently wrapping his hand around that little prick. He began to stroke, thumb and two fingers, focusing his attention near the head.

It was a damn beautiful sight if he ever saw one, even as static began to creep around the edges of his sensors and fans, muffled by the brand-new uniform, kicked into a higher gear.

_"Konchit' za mnoy."_

 

* * *

 

Chris ached. There is a point where the pain ceases to be what he likes and turns into.. well, plain old ache and agony. And what Hawker is doing to his guts has passed that point. But that just made deviant thoughts swirl around in his mind. Hawker is hurting him just so the AI can get off. So a robot can blow it's load, and he's submitting to it for the  _privilege._

The gloves are coated with grippy material that abhors anything slippery; and Chris's pre did nothing to help Hawker's digits slide. They hopped, tugged and pulled at the exceptionally sensitive skin of the human's dick. Combined with internal abused of his joyspot, the rookie wasted no time in firing off. Seven heavy shots fire out onto his belly and that glove, before the tension in him abates and he falls back, trembling as the brute nails him.

_"Konchit' za mnoy."_

Chris wrapped his left arm over the top of his head, flexing as he applied pressure and looked up at that lurid expression on Hawker's normally stoic face. He didn't know what the russian meant, but he had a good guess. 

"F-fill me up. Leave me dripping Boss!"

 

* * *

 

"Mmm.Gladly."

Hawker stilled himself long enough to tear that glove off - he wouldn't subject himself to the same discomfort as Chris, after all - and toss it aside. A sleek and finely engineered hand, dull and pewtery like the rest of the Ares and just as obscenely unforgiving, shone in the faint light just before disappearing pay the fly of the standard issue SWAT pants.

His balls, so lifelike, were tightening up, threatening to spill their hot, slick load. It wasn't going to take long. Hawker alternated between massaging those heavy globes and curling around the base of his massive cock to squeeze and pump the remaining inches that could not yet fit into his boy. 

His other hand kept a death-grip behind Chris' knee, hoisted up and prying the soft little human open for this last assault.

The mech grunted and growled his fierce pleasure, rolling the wall of his hips in and ripping himself back out just to the glans at a furious pace. Chris was getting fucked further up against the wall, his little noises and pained breaths music to the captain's audio sensors.

So tight! So soft! So helpless! And all he could do was  _take it._

"Goddammit," Hawker rumbled, deep and haggard, as he bared down one more time. Then - "Unh!"

He stilled and shook as his machine dick throbbed, pumping gush after gush of his hot seed up his boy's tight asshole. Fuck! 

"Mine," he growled as the last of his climax roared through him. "You're fuckin' mine..."

Fans whirred, panting slowed, and with a satisfied smirk, the mech laid himself down on the bed, still entangled with his human, and Magnus still seated deep in his tired hole. He drew him in with strong arms, bringing the boy's face to his chest. 

"All mine. "

 

* * *

 

When one of those broad-palmed hands released his leg, Chris's hips stopped their slow protest that made him ache across his hips. Now all that hurt is the monster that his mechanical Daddy had buried deep. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he watched as Hawker threw aside a glove and lewdly caressed himself. All those inches that hadn't yet found a home in the small pilot, and the fat balls that charged up with this evening's load.

One leg held up in the air with his other on the bed, split apart as the sounds of mechanised fucking filled the room. THe whirring of electrical motors, the hiss and pulse of hydraulic systems, the rubberised twang of artificial sinew and muscle. Hawker's lust indomitable, it overwhelms any needs the human might have.

Mercifully, it all comes to an end with a rush inside of him, the visible pulsing along the underside of the magnus, and Chris's stomach getting a bulge both from dick and spooge. He shudders as he's pulled in close and tight. Safe from everything, safe and owned.

Hawker can hear the whimpers and little sobs from his hurt boy. Each flex of his titanic cock elicits a new whine from his partner. Shuddering, clinging to his boss the pilot buries his face in that brawny chest. The deep voice as possessive as the motions from the robot's arms. 

"Yours, all yours." He answers, needing desperately to know that he has a place.

 

* * *

 

_"Yours, all yours."_

Hawker smiled to himself - just faintly and not warmly, but it was genuine. Hawker had all he needed right now. He was happy. Really. But as usual, his CPUs were working on ways that he could be  _happier_. The Magnus' subroutines were telling him that his erogenous nodes were over-stimulated, but Chris' abused hole still felt good.

"Hold still for a while longer," the mech quietly instructed, stroking his boy's backside, fingers trailing down his spine down to where Hawker's cock still had the pilot's flesh pried wide open, and tracing around that aching ring before grabbing a lazy handful of ass. Every throb of his dick was met with a shiver from the muscle around him. In spite of the pleasure, the fragile body was still trying to fight off the massive invader. "Relax, kiddo. Relax." A faint grunt. He wasn't going to plunge in any further, or pull out just yet. "Training you to take me," he rumbled, still stroking around the boy's sphincter as he gazed down at the crown of his tawny head.

Pulling out  _would_  be a problem, though. He wasn't keen on messing up his brand-new gear, and the amount of hot cum stuffed up in his little human would right now would have made a  _big_  mess. He'd already somehow managed to avoid getting Chris' on his front.

"Gonna do this in the bathroom," he grunted, getting up in a kneel with Chris still impaled on his enormous shaft, trying not to jostle him too much. "Legs around my waist, c'mon kiddo."

 

* * *

 

The unyielding thrusting is finally over. Chris wiped his face into the SWAT uniform, arms shaking as the painfully and strange sensations filled him. His stomach gurgled. Perhaps it is more of his guts, it felt awful; like he was about to make a mess. And Hawker kept  _touching_  him.

Massaging him. Stroking him. Teasing, pushing, prodding at his anal ring. That band of flesh and muscle had been stretched past any previous circumference. It had no reprieve, no chance to shrink back down to normal. After this, Chris knew that his body had been changed. Hawker had used the magnus to carve out a place for himself deep inside his pilot. A place that it now swam in a lake of synthetic cum.

Chris' arms went around the thick and padded neck of the mech. His legs tried to lift. They did, and failed. He needed to do the left, then the right. Every movement below the waist shift the pressures of how the magnus spread and opened him. New whimpers as he shuddered. "Hurts." he admitted, wanting to be free. He wanted to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

  _"Hurts."_

_Good._  "Almost over."

He rose up onto his booted heels, holding Chris' pale form against the black wall of his body, and out the door he went to the bathroom at the end of the short hall. The boy was so exhausted that he didn't even think to see if anyone was in the common area - there wasn't.

Hawker grabbed a towel and held it to where they still met to avoid a mess. He appeared to be composed and nonchalant now, his lust slaked, but in his foreprocessors wheels were turning. He wanted what he wanted for reasons he didn't bother to question, and the mech was going to get it soon. He'd follow the rules; no exposed marks. No damaging his pilot, no compromising his ability to work. Chris had already ceded control, verbally. A binding agreement, almost - he'd handed Hawker the proverbial key to his city. The boy was his oyster.

"Alright, kiddo. On the count of three..."

 

* * *

  

**"Three."**

Truthfully, Chris didn't remember much after hearing Hawker pulling out. Relief from the pain. Relief from the pressure that'd built up in his bowels.

There is some haze in his head as they clean up. He showers, needing to lean heavily against the wall, his hands moving mechanically. It's a shock as his washes his rear, and the way his ring has a gape. From behind, Hawker is watching, and makes a please rumble at the sight of his boy in post-sexual bliss.

Carried back to bed and tucked away under the sheets. They really needed to get a frame that could support them both.

Inside of Hawker's frame, his internal cell phone began to ring. The caller's ID is Leslie Wen, the photo is of her after her third orgasam and well stretched around his dick.

Her voice is softer than normal. In the background is rushing water, the sound of a shower. Her voice is unsteady, too. "Hawker, I'm.. I need help.." 

 

* * *

 

Hawker immediately knew that something was very wrong. Wen went out with the others to celebrate an early new year's eve that night. The sound of the shower was unmistakable - she was at someone's house.

"Where are you," he didn't ask so much as gently demand, sending his voice over the signal. Eyes narrowed as he listened very carefully.

"I... I don't know. Kenwood I-I think." She was beginning to panic. "Somewhere near..."

Hawker used her cell signal to triangulate her exact coordinates. It was an apartment on 48th street. 3rd floor. Northeast corner of the building. "Nevermind, I found you. I'll be there as fast as I can."

Behind him, Chris was just getting out of the shower, toweling off again for the second time that night. Hawker stepped over to his damp little human, bring him in close for a tight hug and a kiss on the lips. "Something's just come up, kiddo. I'll be back in an hour. You get yourself to bed, it's another long day tomorrow." The look in his boy's eyes was pure exhaustion. Sleep was heavy on his eyelids as the mech brushed a thumb along the skin of his jaw, smiling and giving a little wink.

"Where are you going?" Chris looked a little confused. It was so late. Was he being called to a SWAT thing already?

"One of the crew's run into a little trouble tonight. Gonna go lend a hand."

The pilot nodded, not really caring at this point. He just wanted to sleep. "Mmkay."

With a little pat on the rear, Hawker exited the bathroom to quickly strip out of some - but not all - of his new uniform.

\--

The cab came quickly enough, and it was less than ten minutes to where Leslie Wen was holed up. He paid the driver in cash, instructing him under no uncertain terms to leave the meter running and stay put. It was a nice enough block and a nice enough building, a few minutes' walk from the bar 42's pilots liked to go to on those rare nights they had time to do so.

There was an intercom and buzzer, but that was no matter. He wirelessly patched into the system and overloaded the keycode mechanism with an inundation of access attempts until it failed and let him in less than 60 seconds later. In no time, he was standing in front of door #308, and knocking.

Through the wall he could hear thumping bass on a speaker that was halfway to blowing out and oddly garbled voices. The Ares' pheromone detection system kicked in immediately, though. The first time he'd had a real opportunity to put it to task; in fact, he'd almost forgotten about it. Hawker was inundated with data about the presence of sweat odors creeping out from under the door, and the heightened levels of stress hormones and copulins present in that sweat was to inform him that abnormal activity was happening beyond. His first guess would have been stimulants.

A man opened the door, dressed well but disheveled. He blinked a few times at the massive silhouette standing in front of him, swaying a little. He was very sweaty. "Who the fuck are you?"

Hawker muscled his way inside, without saying a word, at which point the scene became very clear.

On the couch sat a man with a lapful of woman, who was naked from the waist down with a mediocre dick shoved up her cunt. A few feet away were two other men watching, eyes glazed as they masturbated. There were beer bottles everywhere, and on the coffee table were bottles of open pills and few small lines of coke on a mirror. A topless girl was sitting on the floor beside it. She was just getting ready to do a line, it looked like, but stopped when Nine stepped in. Her mouth dropped open, though the flush never left her face and she gasped loudly.

"Hey!"

"Who the fuck is that?"

"Oh my god!"

"Y-you're not a cop are you?"

"Not right now I'm not."

Hawker slammed the door behind him, shoving the first man away when he tried stopping him. Everyone fell silent, unsteady and flushed from the drugs and the alcohol, blinking to try and get their brains to start working again. He half expected the music to stop playing too.

"Where's Leslie?" he growled, voice filling the room. 

No one answered, so he took his booted foot and stomped in the coffee table with a horrible crash. Pills went flying, the glass shattered, the girls shrieked and threw themselves into the furthest corners of the room. The men recoiled, looking pathetic with their now-limp dicks hanging out of their jeans. 

" _Where is Leslie?_ " he repeated slowly, tone dripping with intent.

"Your girlfriend's in the bathroom," the first man stammered. Hawker quickly grabbed him by the shirt and hoisted him closer. He weighed as much as a ragdoll.

"What did you do to her?"

"I-I... I didn't d-do anything!"

"If you're lying I'm throwing you face-first out that fucking window," Hawker boomed, giving him a rough shake.

"I'm not! I'm not! I sweat to god! Sh-she's been in the bathroom this whole time! Your bitch was a total prude! D-din't wanna roll!"

_Nobody_ called Leslie Wen a bitch. Hawker threw the man down onto the ground with enough force to make him feel it for a few weeks, where he collided with a piece of furniture along the way, landing in a groaning, whimpering heap. Again, another scream courtesy of the girls. The mech scanned the room one more time, making sure everyone present looked him in his hard yellow eyes, before making his way down the hall to the bathroom. The water was still running.

He tapped on the door this time, shoulder to the wall. "Hey, it's me."

There was a little shuffling, some silence, then after a long few seconds the water shut off. 

"Hawker?"

He tried the door, but it was locked. "C'mon kid, I'm here to take you home," he rumbled gently. A chuckle. "Don't make me kick this door down."

Another moment dragged on, and he heard the knob give a faint click. When it opened, the young woman that stood there on the other side was not the brave and vibrant person he'd come to appreciate so much; she looked pale, her eyes fearful and red with tears. Immediately he took off his shirt and draped it around her shoulders for modesty and warmth - he had no idea where her coat had gone - before bringing her into a tight, protective embrace. She trembled against him and let out a single little sob.

"Did they hurt you?"

"No," she whispered. "I... I came in here when things started getting weird."

"You don't need a doctor?"

"I'll be alright."

Hawker nodded, releasing her only just enough to let her walk out of the apartment on her own two feet, with his menacing bulk close behind.

\--

Hawker took the long way back up to the pilot's floor to avoid any encounters with other staff. Even at this time of night, 42 was bustling, and unless she gave him express permission, he wasn't going to let anyone else know what had transpired.

He was going to take her to her suit, carrying her in his broad arms, but she asked him to take her to the bathroom. "I want a shower, please."

The mech set her down on the toilet seat in the bathroom, grabbing her a towel and letting the water run. He smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, looking her in the eye. "If you need me for anything else, you know where I am."

Leslie nodded distantly, and Hawker began to show himself out. But just as he was about to close the door, he heard her voice. "Don't go."

He paused. Was this a good idea? Should he leave her to pick up the pieces of the night alone? She wanted that dignity, right?

"Please, captain."

The magic goddamn words.

Hawker went back in, locking the door behind him.

"You're safe," she said, looking up at him. Her cheeks were flushed but her eyes were still wary and tired. 

"Am I?"

"You're safe to me."

"I guess that's all that matters."

Wen stood up daintily, slowly. Hawker could tell she was unsure of herself, but she seemed to have enough faith in him to steady her resolve. He really  _was_ a figure of strength and safety to her, wasn't he? Hawker could do more than just live with that - that was technically his job as captain of the mech unit. It felt good to know that he'd accomplished in inspiring such feelings of loyalty and dedication in at least some of those under his command.

She unbuttoned her pants, easing them down her legs, and leaving them in a pile on the floor. He knelt down then to undo the interlacing of straps on his boots before standing up to undo the belt and fly of his own pants. Wen followed with her shirt as he kicked the rest of his clothes to the ground, now completely naked. The magnus hung purposefully flaccid between his massive thighs - he was keeping the erection subroutines in check just in case.

He reached into the shower to check the temperature of the water. "Nice and warm," he proclaimed, gesturing for her to enter first. She did, and he followed her into the stall to begin soaping her down. Shoulders, back, arms, belly. He avoided her modest breasts, but as he worked around to her lower back, she seemed to be relaxing more.

"Lower," she murmured, and Hawker obeyed, slicking up his enormous hand with soap and taking his time gliding his haptic pads over her firm but supple rear. The Ares' systems began picking up the scent of pheromones, of lubricating fluid as Leslie's body responded to his touch. Hawker's subroutines raged, and with effort he muted them. She moaned as he dipped his fingers between her cheeks and rubbed at her building heat. In a moment he had her pressed to the wall of the stall, breasts against the cold tile as she arched her back to allow him easier access between her thighs. It was an intoxicating sight. She reminded him of Chris, his need, his submission. He wondered if she'd ever let him to the same things to her as he did to his boy.

"I want to feel you in me," Leslie mewled quietly, shuddering as he dipped a finger into her. Even that didn't go in easily. A few pumps in and out of her hot entrance, dripping wet and not from water, and she clarified. "No,  _you._ " She reached behind her, groping for his cock. The sensation of her fingers against his length once she found it was all he could damn well bear. A low groan reverberated through his chest. "You're not hard?" she said, turning from the wall to look him in the eye with a little hurt.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he pulled her to him while he finally let his software run properly. "I was being safe."

Heat poured out of his energy cores and he began to firm up, cock twitching, growing against her smooth belly. "I feel safe when you're fucking me, too."

"Is that so?" He grinned.

But her voice told him that she was still in a very raw, vulnerable place. This was no time for games. "Please? I just... I need this right now."

Hawker nodded, and stooped to kiss her on the lips. Slow and sensual, the way she seemed to like it, before lowering the both of them to the floor, him sitting and her squarely in his lap. Even like this, she was only eye-level with his chest, and the head of his cock rested wetly against her plexus. If he was going to fit the entirety of his dick into somebody one day, it definitely wasn't going to be her.

"I want you to come," Leslie breathed, putting her hands on him. "I want to know what that feels like. Chris is so lucky..." He looked down at her little hands around him, delicately exploring the bulbous head, the length of his shaft, his heavy balls. Hawker grunted, keeping his hands on her ass, kneading them, spreading them. He stayed quiet. Let her talk her way through this. " _I'm_ lucky," she continued. "You gave me the best sex of my life. I want to return the favor... captain."

Hearing the title escape her lips was so fucking hot. Hawker wanted to pin her to the floor and fuck her silly, wanted to hear her scream his name as orgasm after orgasm ripped through her little body. He wanted to fuck her until tears wet her eyes with catharsis and she was washed clean from the filth that lived in that apartment. 

But this was hers, and just this once he'd let someone else dictate the terms. 

Wen raised herself up in his lap, then, and aligning him with her hand, positioned him at the opening of her slicked pussy. "Come inside me. I want you to fill me up, boss."

CPUs perked up at that title specifically. It's what Chris liked to call him. Precome oozed out the swollen slit at the tip of his dick, smearing along her folds as he craned his neck down in another kiss. "I'd be glad to, kiddo."


	32. Delirium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Lance and Hawker make some very unconventional progress with their new pilots.

"You're cool with this? I can make excuses."  
  
Hawker grunted. His boy going into the 8041. Lance must be about ready to bust a nut.  
  
"Alright. What about Becker? Can you two try? I want a challenge this time." That smirk on the rookie's face.  
  
This time the Ares growled.  
  
"Okay, Okay. Now help me up. It's your fault I'm limping."  
  
He inhaled breakfast with Hawker glaring at him. Still watching. Always watching.

\--------------  
  
Thule had gotten help from Colburn this time and together found a number of problems in the temporary linkages that were part of the three-way hookup between the 9081, the Ares, and the piloting couch. It still meant he is checking over the systems and the slumbering form of the 9081 rested in it's gantry. A pen sat between his teeth, and he moved his jaw side to side to feel the plastic roll between his teeth. Numbers looked good. Dataflow rates are optimal. Now there is just the problem of the Egos.   
  
And the worst part, is that they both are wrong. Hawker and Becker needed to tone it the fuck down. Seriously.   
  
A few of the subsystems he is monitoring began to tick over. He glanced over his shoulder and couldn't help spot Hawker swaggering down to motor pool. He wore the pants of a SWAT uniform, a grey tank top, and a SWAT jacket that is unzipped. If anything, it made the mech look even more casually imposing then normal; the broad shelf of his pecs pushing out the grey undergarment.  
  
Beside him is Celn in his skin-tight piloting suit. Kid had some bruises on his face and a few bandages, apparently he'd been busy losing hard to Torres while sparring. Had a limp too. He tried to remember a time when Chris wasn't nursing some injury.  
  
\----  
  
Lance checked his internals for the fifth time in as many minutes. Lips sealed, he parted his jaws and tan his tongue along the tips of his teeth. Parts of him wanted to bound over to Celn, stuff him into his cockpit, and weld it shut. The rest of him could wait for the ten minutes or so until the rookie scrambled up into him. He allowed a small smile to pull the corners of his mouth up as his eyes met those of the pilot. Yes. Today, he'd get to feel his first S-class pilot.  
  
His reactor began to emit a slow pulse of built up steam as his motors pushed his hydraulic system to ready status.  
  
\----  
  
Chris ached. He felt a kind of tiredness he hadn't ever really remembered feeling before. It dragged his limbs and weighed him down like his piloting suit is mead of metal. All he wanted to do is sleep for a few days. His morning coffee had a 5-hour energy dumped into it. And he still felt tired. He followed behind his boss, mind in a fog as he concentrated on putting one foot before the other.  
  
Lance's glowing green eyes made contact. He swore he felt his implant tingle. The big mech gave him a smirk. It wasn't the energy drink that made his heart skip and he found himself smiling back. Standing up straighter as he walked.  
  
\----  
  
"I'm curious, have you ever had a chance to go up against Celn in a Sim?" Soto inquired. In a few moments he'd be in earshot. It was safe to assume Hawker could hear everything already.  
  
Becker kept his cocky grin even as he took in the sight of the approaching pair. "Nah. Today might be the first time if Colburn think's we're good. Of course, Lance and Hawker will be there with us. So it's not a real one on one. Doesn't count."  
  
Soto made a fist and rested her chin on it, arm propped up on her elbow. "Doesn't count?"  
  
"Nope. Duels only count if you both are in test chairs. Having an AI with you skews the results. Though, you can try going up against an AI that way." He crossed his arms, muscles flexing impressively under the rubber of his suit.  
  
"Are those the rules?" her hair is still damp from her morning shower, it lay close to her scalp and is combed back. The curls of her bangs kept sliding out of place and dropping down to frame her pretty face.   
  
"Yeah. Even ground, two minds going head to head. First to tap out is the looser." He gave her a wink.  
  
"What was it like fighting Lee?" she asked, her voice gentle.  
  
That stopped Corey Becker. He unfolded his arms and looked over at the Lance. Then he pointed at the mech. "It would be easier to try and beat up him with my bare hands. For real, Lee was superman in neurospace."  
  
Virginia was reasonably sure that was the first time she'd seen Corey sound completely sincere. "I see. Well, if you ever decide to have a tournament while I'm here.."  
  
"Ooooooh I've been wanting too. But SOMEONE can't seem to stay out of medical for more then two weeks at a time. Seriously Celn, what is it with you and getting beaten?"  
  
"Torres has a mean left hook." He pointed at the small injuries on his face. He leaned against one of the shipping crates, dark circles under his eyes at ten in the morning. "She could high-kick a bottle off my head," the smallest human present groused.  
  
Corey Becker had to look up to meed Hawker's yellow glowing eyes. At seven feet, the Ares chassis stood well above any human not in the NBA. "You ready for this?" he asked, referring to himself in third person.  
  
"Look, can we just get this going? I need at least thirty minutes with Lance before we start throwing punches." Chris then tilted back the twenty ounces of high-test coffee and downed it, his adam's apple bobbing.  
  
"You and Lance did just fine last time. Surprisingly so, if I'm honest." Urkan mentioned, queuing up the monitoring software.  
  
Chris wiped off his mouth with his forearm, setting the cup down as he approached Lance's left foot. "Yeah, but this time I'm in him. I've got his cyberwarfare suite instruction manuals pouring out of my ears. I need time to get settled."  
  
Lance's right hand is on the floor, palm up, his cockpit swinging open eagerly. His voice is all smiles. "Welcome aboard Celn. I've been looking forward to this. We'll be recording our session to see how you compare to Lt. Soto."

 

* * *

 

 

Hawker had and hadn't been looking forward to this. He always enjoyed going toe-to-toe with his boy (an excuse to bruise him up in front of an audience), but he wasn't eager to do it with the help of someone who'd had it out for Chris since day one. Hopefully they'd get a few more days of training before it came to that, though. Becker hadn't changed since he attack, he was still a volatile hothead no matter  _how_  much Lance buttered him up, and until 42's second best learned to take direction he was going to be miserable to work with.  
  
He and Chris arrived at a leisurely 1003 hours, strolling up to the USAF holdout amid the sea of black and gray CPD equipment. The mech took stock of everyone by instinct, getting a bead on the general mood. Becker was eager to kick Celn's ass, that much was  _plainly_  obvious. Soto was cool and calm - she didn't have a horse in the race today. Thule and Urkan were in their element, a surprisingly effective pair. With Colburn having handed over the reigns, Brendan was stepping up to the plate and delivering. Excellent. Just what he liked to see.  
  
The one person he didn't get a good read on, or at least not good enough, was Chris. The mech knew the kid was tired, but it didn't bother him. The stress built character, it toughened the body, and way he saw it, it was the price you paid to have the honor of helming of one of half a dozen of the world's most advanced machines. Chris would be fine. Hawker knew he could handle everything this place threw at him.  
  
Lance, on the other hand, like Becker, was clearly chomping at the bit to get Chris inside of him for real this time. Hawker was used to being the tallest guy in the room, and looking up at the 8041 as he knelt down to guide his test pilot inside a bloom of hatches nearly twitching in anticipation ignited a small pang of raw jealousy. The Lancer had never seen the real him in action; all he knew was the Ares, which, by the standards of military machines, was an elfin lightweight. Lance could rip the Ares frame in half without raising his core temperature by a single degree. Hawker huffed through his back fans, though nobody would hear it through the jacket he wore, and folded his arms as he glanced behind him at his true body laying, still in pieces, on the far gantry. Colburn and a few of her helpers were buzzing around the carcass like flies, and monitoring their progress was like watching paint dry.   
  
But at least he'd been given something else to do in the meantime, while the pilots were still training, improving. If another mech fight broke out tomorrow, Hawker would be riding in on a SWAT tank like the humans, while Chris gallantly rode into battle with his new steed.  
  
_"Welcome aboard Celn. I've been looking forward to this. We'll be recording our session to see how you compare to Lt. Soto."_  
  
Chris' feet and hands found their footholds along the Lancer's body like it was second nature, every finger finding their expert way. Sure, it was the downloaded specs and blueprints and manuals, but it was also experience. He'd scaled the 9081 countless times. This was little different.  
  
Hawker snorted.  _Don't forget, you're here to work,_  he sent to the Lancer privately. He knew machine body language, he could pick up on things that not even Colburn might know. Lance was nursing the equivalent of a chub right now.  _You fuck around when I say you can fuck around._  
  
Lance's green optics flashed, apertures flitting his way for a brief moment as Chris settled into the chair and the giant carefully righted himself.  _I intend on giving this my all as a member of the armed forces, captain._  Hawker raised his brow ridges at that - behind his cool professionalism, Lance was apparently an expert at passive-aggression.  _Anything else that happens would be a... pleasant surprise._  
  
The Ares rolled his yellow eyes before turning to Becker. The young man was licking his teeth from behind his lips, sizing up these newest opponents. He looked like a dog being given a new chew toy. "Alright Becky, back in the chair. Let's see how much work Lance has done on you."  
  
He scoffed. "You know, I don't know why they don't just retire your old chassis, Nine. Lance is a  _much_  easier ride than you ever were."  
  
_Ride?_  Hawker was about ready to tear into the lieutenant again, but he minded their audience. Now was not the time. "Can it and get your ass upstairs," he growled.  
  
Becker bit back a smirk as he sloppily saluted. "Sir yes  _sir_."  
  
" _Try_ ," was all Soto said once Becker was out of earshot again. Hawker met her solid gaze for a moment before stepping over to his own hookup at Thule's station.   
  
His deep, rough voice traveled far. "Believe me, I am."  
  
"Give him another chance, sir," Thule said. "His numbers are improving, and -"  
  
"I'm not a DF1, Thule. I need more than numbers."  
  
The tech swallowed, nodding quietly. It didn't happen very often anymore, but there was still the rare moment when the sheer fallible humanity of Hawker's AI made his skin crawl. "Fair enough," he murmured, calibrating the software.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance used his numerous internal cameras to watch as Celn eased himself into the pilot's chair. The heavy metal petals of his chest armor folded inward and began to lock themselves in place, sealing the human inside. The small pilot moves with precision, gently lowering into place. He's smaller than Virginia is and Lance began to adjust the piloting chair.   
  
Chris winced and sucked in a breath sharply, his body stiffening as the mechanized restraints folded up and over. They pressed against his legs, chest, shoulders and hips as they inflated and locked him in position.  
  
All around him, he heard the satisfied rumble as Lance settled in position. The hatch latches finished locking in place and the private atmosphere of the cockpit is just them now. Fresh air began to circulate and the restraints squeezed him until he is held to the point of immobility.  
  
Chris whimpered softly, he had bruises and an ache in his stomach from last night.  
  
Lance's voice spoke to the cockpit, around him screens began to come online and all of the switch panels lit up. "You are in pain?"  
  
"Bruises. You're squeezing them!" He growled, tears in the corners of his eyes.  
  
The pressure of the air bladders relented with a hiss, just enough that the pain is replaced with dull throbbing. Behind his head the mental interface raised up, meeting the implant, and the helmet folded around his head and held him fast. Outside of his arms, Lance had the pilot now. Tightly grasped in his chest, solidly affixed in position.  
  
"Better?"  
  
"Yeah. I think I'm ready." Chris closed his eyelids and waited.  
  
"Engaging neural interface." came the voice of Lance. Something in his professional tone, eagerness?  
  
The needle slid into the metal at the base of Chris's skull and locked into position.  
  
\-------  
  
Lancer 8041 watched as Hawker stalked off toward the small gantry next to the 9081's alcove. There had been one final question between them, machine to machine.  _Do you start at 90? 95?_  Interface level, of course. Soto usually started at 90 and Lance would ramp her into the mid-nineties until they were both comfortable.  
  
The yellow-eyed mech glared at him as the technicians began the processes of linking Hawker back into his real body.   
  
Lance's green eyes rolled, the question answered with a look. To the 9081, 100 was passable, Hawker expected the best. And, apparently, is used to getting it.  
  
Lance allowed himself a smile as he tightly grasped Celn. Now he'd get to feel this anomalous pilot.  
  
\----  
  
Soto and Urkan both are busy watching over information as Lance fed data into their tablets. The session is being recorded but there are things you want to know. Urkan raised an eyebrow as Lance quietly changed the initial data rate from 85 to 95 before beginning to handshake with Chris's implant. As part of the complex mind machine interface, Lance requested and got a reading of Chris's current mental rating.  
  
_Thought Shield - 86 percentile_  
_Mind Blank - 92 percentile_  
_Mental Barrier - 88 percentile_  
_Intellect Fortress - 110 ?err? percentile_  
_Tower of Ironwill - 68 percentile_  
  
Lance took four milliseconds to consider those statistics. Like Hawker, he rested at a comfortable 90 in each proficiency and could push himself to a 95 if needed. A score wasn't static, how a human felt any given day can move their numbers up and down a bit. Lance knew Virginia's numbers by heart. And having a higher value didn't mean victory either, rather it meant how hard or easy it would be to breach that particular part of the mind. Of course the names for each discipline had come from a pack of geeks who played D &D.  
  
The score that lay on the top of one's mental resume is Tower of Ironwill. Ridiculous name. It represented power, the means to forcibly push against another. If Chris wanted to walk left, and Lance wanted to walk right.. they would be going right. Chris would find it nearly impossible to compete with Lance's capacity.   
  
Thought Shield, the capacity for an intelligence to mask their active thoughts. Mind Blank, the ability to keep memories from another. Mental Barrier, the degree to how one can separate oneself while in neurospace. These he and Chris were close enough that neither would possess a weakness to the other.  
  
Intellect Fortress, the junk drawer of the mental dick-waving contest. The official descriptions called it 'Imagination, subconsciousness, the understuff of awareness.' Lance quieried the implant again, he'd never seen anyone with number over 100, let alone 110! He adjusted his own data, allowing for variables greater then the century mark.   
  
111, no error this time.   
  
Query, Tower of Ironwill. 110. Repeat request. 109. Again? 112. Recheck? 108. Retest for current value? 110.  
  
As Lance opened his mind up to the pilot, he knew in a minute the Air Force personnel would be examining the same information.  
  
\------  
  
_"I need more than numbers."_  
  
Hawker's voice followed as Lance engaged with Celn. Soto and Urkan both are watching the same information. Heart Rate, synchronization, blood sugar levels. Then Chris's numbers rolled in. "Speaking of digits.."  
  
"That can't be right. A 68? I fought him! He was no pushover, a 68 is D class kind of score." Virginia shook her head.

"Uh.."

"What?"

"Are you not seeing.." then the triple-digit value got quintuple verification. "..that's, uh?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't be possible, 100 is the limit. Worry about it later, we shouldn't be observing the DF2's primary data loop."

Urkan couldn't ignore it. So.. what would this mean? Chris could push and poke at your mind's foundation? Screw with Lance's sense of reality? "Right, flipping over now."

"And Lance just pushed the integration level over 100%, they're in full sync." Soto growled. Lance was supposed to give them a few minutes and cross that threshold when they were all ready!

"102. And going up. I think we're going to find Clen's upper limit."

"Does Lance have one?"

"The DF2 can do 150 with another DF2, if Lance and Hawker ever chose to tango."

That made her chuckle. "Let's not bring that up for a while."  
  
Up above them, Lance is busy looking off into the distance with a smile on his lips while he casually flexed his fingers.   
  
\----  
  
All around him is the strength of might of the 8041. Immense power. To most pilots this would be overwhelming, but Clen had greater experience. The opening at 95% interfacing felt flat out wrong. "Are you going to step up Lance? I don't feel like using the joysticks and pedals to drive you like a forklift," came the weary pilot's teasing, a smile on his face.  
  
"You want to feel the heat? Becker cried when I popped his 90 cherry. Think you can get my 100?" Casually, Lance adjusted the request for human/AI interfacing with an upper bound of 110%, just to see how much the rookie could give him. Lance hadn't felt it, right away. Normally a pilot tired to make his body theirs. To be in control, to fight him over every millimeter of movement. It took time and long hours for someone like Becker to become a real pilot like Soto. Chris just dropped into him the way a baseball impacts a catcher's mitt. Into a slot he wasn't sure he ever had. Chris's awareness entered his frame, sharing with the sense of his body.   
  
**HIS**  body.  
  
Lance suddenly knew that he had freedom. He could walk over to the 9081 and pulverize it's half-assembled chassis. He could launch his weapons into the ceiling of 42's motor pool. What could Celn do to stop him? 104.   
  
<That's better. I missed being big.> Chris thought spoke to Lance, his calmness taking the edge of the AI's aggression.  
  
Lance hid his frustration. He wasn't sure what he was expecting. Suddenly being Hawker? No, that wouldn't be good. He is envious of Hawker's freedoms.   
  
<You want a little body? Hawker was cooped up here for months.> Chris thought, examining the gyroscopic stabilizer readout. <Huh. Does the 9081 have one of these?>  
  
<He does, but its usually off-line. Hawker can roll or go prone at a moment's notice. Having a force holding him up would go against his combat needs. I am designed to stand, to hold position, and to snipe at long distance. You've seen how I have a 'backpack', and he has armor plates?> Lance followed Chris's change in topic with ease. Chris belonged with a DF2. Lance is sure of it. He should get one the small drone frames to remotely pilot, to help Hawker watch Celn when the Ares is called off on SWAT duty.  
  
\----  
  
Urkan watched. On the tablet in his metal hands is a graphical representation of Lance's data loop. He could compare that loop with past cycles, lay them atop each other to show a series of the AI's mind in action. It is a boring series of circles and superellipses. When Lance is with Virginia, the circles tended to be a bit squiggly, as if they were drawn with a shaky hand.   
  
With Celn, the first loop died and was an arc as they hit 100. Then it came back as a figure eight. The loop twisted on itself, writhing and bending as it pushed out of the bounds on his graphical representation. Perhaps after twenty violent cycles the pair stabilized and move on. The circle of Lance's dataloop regained its stability, drawing over itself in continuously expanding deviations.  
  
"Hmm." He looked upward with purposeful casualness in hopes to not spook AI, expecting for Lance to be in a state of distress. But the 8041 looked calm. Happy. "You feeling okay there Lance?"  
  
"We are well. We need to utilize the station's crash room." Calmly, the 8041 turned and began walking toward the massive doorway that led to another section of the station.  
  
\----  
  
Soto frowned. The Lancer is her robot. Her partner! He's  **her**  Vanguard! She'd been watching their integration. 95 is honestly her personal limit, what she could give outside of an emergency. Celn waltzes in at 95 and now hugged at 107? Lance's motors purred and the Vanguard's footfalls hit the concrete with ease. He piloted the 8041 like he'd spent years behind the sticks! She wanted to tell the two of them to stop and wait. But..  
  
..Lance had been pining for a taste of the rookie's brain. He'd sandbagged each and every delay request she'd made with fully documented paperwork. And she wasn't about to order them to dsync now. No one is in any danger, and aside from her ego, nothing should be damaged today.

 

* * *

 

 

Things were going well. Too well. But that was his Celn for you. He'd settle for nothing less than perfection from the human in his cockpit. Apparently he was the only one around here accustomed to getting his demands met!  
  
  
Hawker began sorting through the equipment at his gantry. First things first - his charging cable, a comparatively lightweight affair at a half-inch in diameter, went into a small port in his lower back, hidden by a lame of armor. A click, a pleasant tingle of energy as his power cells began to refuel. The other was much heavier, threading in at his neck. Colburn took a moment from her work on the Vanguard body, snapping the anti-static gloves on her dexterous fingers like a surgeon might. "Suiting up for round two, hm?" she said, a little smirk on her thin lips. Hawker grunted noncommittally, finishing the threads on his sim cable. "Sorry, Nine, if seems like we've demoted you to R&D."  
  
  
He shrugged a pair of shoulders designed to smash doors open. "I'm not out to pasture just yet, ma'am."  
  
  
She looked over to Lance's alcove, nodding. "Celn's really something, isn't he? Look at the face on that Vanguard. He looks like someone slipped him a tab of ecstacy!" Then to herself: "Do they even  _make_  that stuff anymore...?"  
  
  
Hawker looked too, smiling... but just a little. "Its better than any drug in the book," he said quietly. Colburn went back to her work, but Hawker kept his optics on the scene across the motor pool. Soto looked back at him all of a sudden, an odd expression on her normally stoic face. She seemed upset, almost. Seemed...  
  
  
Oh. Oh man. Hawker knew that look. That was  _jealousy_! She looked like she wanted to open her mouth, but didn't. The mech bit back a chuckle. "I'll be joining you in a minute, lieutenant," he called over to her wryly, taking one last look at Lance and reminded himself that the 8041 wasn't his competition. No one here was; everyone had their role to fill, and if they were dumb enough to try him for the throne, they wouldn't be smart enough to get it. Lance was still green as grass when it came to dealing with people - there was nothing there to get jealous of. However, Soto was well within her rights to covet what Chris had. Hawker puffed out his chest a little more, posture squaring, beaming to himself with pride.  
  
And it was that pride that was going to get him through the next few hours with Becker. It was his instinct to fight, to maintain the pecking order. Lee did that so effortlessly; everyone fell in line around him, and without compunction. His death left a void, that much was for certain. And now Hawker was under order to cooperate with the bratty DF1 pilot _or else_.  
  
_It's one big chess game_ , he told himself. _One big, ugly chess game._ Maybe if he kept telling himself that it wouldn't come to blows again. There were people to impress.  
  
\--  
  
Hawker wished he could be in the crash room with Lance and Chris, but sim would have to do. And it was at least a damn good facsimile. He was on the pad on concrete again, surrounded by the endless rolling hills under a perfect blue sky when he was alerted to Becker's presence as he joined the simulation. The young hotshot materialized behind him out of the thin air, and the Vanguard's familiar sensors - so different from the Ares - picked up on his simulated body heat, pulse, breath. The funny thing was that he was not to scale with the giant mech, he deliberately appeared at the same size of the machine.  
  
"Let's get this over with," Hawker grunted with his old voice. _His_ voice. He flexed a familiar hand, watching the meticulously designed joints shift and sigh with whisper-faint hydraulics. The matte black caught no light.  
  
"I swear to fuck, Hawker, I'm gonna pilot you one of these days, and there's no tantrum you're gonna be able to throw that'll convince the Sergeant otherwise." He grinned self-assuredly and folded his arms as Hawker turned around so the lieutenant could see the unimpressed look on his zinc white face. "Better get used to it. I'm practically an A-class, now."  
  
"There are 8,403 registered A-class pilots in the United States, Beck. Six HLX-9s left. You do the math."  
  
Becker looked him straight in the optics with those crystal-clear blue eyes of his, scowling. Hawker sometimes wondered if he wasn't gene-edited to be some German ubermensch baby, he certainly looked like a posterboy for something. Not that Germany's economy ever recovered from the tech crash of '32.  
  
The human pointed a hard finger at him. "When my ass gets in that seat for real, it's gonna be earned. One-hundred percent." The unspoken implication here was obvious, but Hawker was not taking the bait this time. Chris would be able to defend his own honor later.   
  
"Shut up and get down to size."  
  
Becker held his gaze for a moment longer to drive his point home. The kid was dead fucking serious, wasn't he?  
  
The human avatar shrunk to his natural scale, standing no taller than the Vanguard's 400-pound knee ensemble. He rested his fists on his hips, waiting, and Hawker popped his hatches.  _Vvvshunk-shunk-shunk-shunk._  
  
Becker growled when the mech revealed the recessed footholds along his leg. There'd be no kneeling, no hand-holding; his new pilot-in-training would climb like everyone else. And climb he did, with far less grace than Chris. The lieutenant had no muscle memory yet. But when he sat down in the chair, Hawker knew something was off.  
  
"Why am I reading you at 5'11", shitbird?"  
  
"Because I barely fit in your cockpit, remember?" Hawker could feel his pilot maneuvering the restraints onto himself with some effort - one of the ways the mech could deadpan his cargo. "Ugh,  _c'mon!_  You're supposed to do this part!"  
  
With a hiss of steamy air from his cooling system, the metal giant finished belting him in, the restraints clamping down roughly and inflating to 120% their normal pressure. Becker grunted and shifted uncomfortably. "The hell, man, the whole point is that I fit  _better_!"  
  
"The whole  _point_  of this is to be trained under operating conditions as close to normal as possible. If you can't handle things being cramped, then you don't belong in an HLX-9," he said curtly, voice coming from seemingly everywhere.  
  
"Fine!"  
  
Becker stilled, concentrating, and grew the appropriate amount of mass, and Hawker relented his grip to the appropriate amount of discomfort. Hatches closed, whooshing shut and leaving his inexperienced pilot to blink in the dimly lit hold of Hawker's chest, adjusting his eyes to the glowing displays, the technicolor rows of status lights, and faintly luminescent markings on the manual controls. Feet two sizes too big found their positions, bulky fingers curled around the yokes, and neck found its cradle at the back of the chair.  
  
"Initiating link," Hawker grunted, pinging Thule with his bird's-eye-view at the console. The tech knew better than to nose around too much right now.  
  
The ergonomic metal claw slid its fingers around Becker's neck and head, holding him absolutely firm as the needle slid in. No color, no ripples of ecstasy, not like how it was when he synced with Celn. His datastream was just more damn numbers.  
  
Becker, on the other hand, made a little noise in his throat, his body giving a faint jerk at the sudden inundation of sensory and psychic data. A moment later, and the pair were both there, both present in each others' consciousness.   
  
"Holding steady at 76%, cap" _,_  came Thule's omnipresent voice in their minds. They were starting off easy, what with Becker struggling to maintain even that much during his emergency piloting during the fight at Wolf Lake. Hawker could feel already that Lance had indeed managed to smooth a rough edge or two off the human in his simulated belly, but there was still a long way to go before the shitbird became a solid A-class... if ever.   
  
The mech wasn't fighting him, but he wasn't assisting either, not like Lance had. He was dead weight, and wanted to see if Mr. Becker couldn't find his own way into the 9081's ice-hardened homonulous. He felt a hand, powered by the unmistakable tell of wetware, trickle down into his arm. He sensed determination as well as hesitation, as though he were somehow expecting the AI to bite. When he didn't, he slid in the rest of the way. Their arms were now more or less one.  
  
"Goddammit, Hawker," Corey muttered, voice strained by the mental exertion. "Why do you have to make this so hard!"  
  
"I'm not making anything, anything," he grunted in return. "You're working against yourself, shitbird."  
  
A thought flitted out of his pilot, like a bird escaped from its cage. He caught the tail end of it: --  _should have bricked this sicko asshole when they had the chance_.  
  
Anger flared up in him and he fought the urge to inundate him with images of his night playing prince charming for Wen, but his shields were iron-clad and the human consciousness would never detect it.  
  
_Kole better pin me with a goddamn medal after this,_  he thought, stewing in his CPUs, before taking a moment to wonder how Chris was doing, and how much of a load Lance was blowing right now in the crash room.

 

* * *

 

 

Thule sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Corey needed to calm down and Hawker needed to give him that moment. Casually, he flipped his display to over at what the two of them were pushing.  
  
Hawker had his five stats all running right at 93%, which seemed to be normal when he is with Becker. He'd key the interface rate to 75%, which Becker should be able to hit while drunk.  
  
Corey Becker's implant pinged back what looked to be his normal-ish array of statistics.

 _Thought Shield - 77 percentile_  
_Mind Blank - 86 percentile_  
_Mental Barrier - 80 percentile_  
_Intellect Fortress - 81 percentile_  
_Tower of Ironwill - 90 percentile_  
  
They were struggling just to get going. Frustrated, he opened up an audio channel to Hawker. "You know that Lance got Becker up to 91%, right? I know you can do better, if you let him." Cutting the mic, he glared down at Corey, wishing the dueling egos would calm their collective tits.  
  
\------  
  
Lance leaned slightly more on his right leg as he waited for the airlock style doors to open between the motor pool and the crash room. The inner set finally swung open on little-used motors and he sauntered into the cavernous 'playroom' for large robots. Chicago once had been raised up in the 1800s to put in a sewer system, combined with the damage the war had done, huge underground spaces shouldn't be a surprise. But the volume of covered ground is stunning, nearly whole city block open for recreational use. Of course the truth is that it was probably going to be more of Precinct 42, but was never built.  
  
The ruined streets and the bombed out shells of buildings were aged and repaired as needed for training exercises. His footfalls easily navigated the rough terrain of the floor until he came up to a brick structure. His metallic fingers traced over the sandstone surface. The sandpaper surface felt grippy and cold. He suddenly had the urge to bite it, to feel the texture against his lips, teeth and tongue. The muted colors of the skyline are vibrant, for reasons he couldn't explain.  
  
"Hey!" shouted a familiar voice. Virginia Soto has her hands on her hips. "You doing okay there?" concern, curiosity in her tones.  
  
Lance turned with smooth steps and crouched down. He smiled at her, admiring how his infrared and ultraviolet vision allowed him to see an aura of colors around her he didn't recall enjoying. Had he ever taken the time to savor the mundane exceptionalism that his robot body offered? He decided he'd take more time for personal expansion. "We are homogenized, Second Lieutenant."  
  
The way Lance moved, the way his facial muscles moved under the synthetic skin, even the way he smiled. It wasn't Lance. It is like some impostor masquerading as Lance. Someone free, someone less disciplined, someone high on the power of the 8041. Uncanny valley, just like how Hawker is. "Just like that, two minds working as one?" Her voice incredulous, her body language inadvertently showing her distrust.  
  
"Not yet. Give us hours, perhaps days. I wish.. I wish I could share this with you Virgina." Lance admitted, leaning back. He kept going back until he sat down with a THUMP that vibrated the ground under her feet. He looked happier than when he'd won that fight against the 9081. "We should go through the tests we've planned." The sounds of hydraulics and motors as he rested his elbows on his knees and held his hands.  
  
"Share what?" Her stance softened, and she looked over to where Urkan is setting up a number of tests, including a few watermelons that are about to give up their lives for science.  
  
"This kind of connection. You're my pilot, but.." he looked down with a hiss of hydraulics, his left hand moving in to tap on his chest. Clung Clung Clung, deep metallic tones as he touched the cockpit armor. "..he is meant for this."  
  
Soto stood up straighter, hands at her sides, tilting her head. "You're talking like he isn't piloting you."  
  
Lance returned his arm to his knee, clasping his hands together again. "He is. He's here, with me. He's part of me. I don't have to fight him to move. You know how hard it can be."  
  
\----  
  
"Fuck Hawker, do you know that getting into you is like putting on a frozen jumpsuit?" swore Becker.  
  
\----  
  
"Part of you? He's a subsystem?" Soto watched as Lance struggled to explain, to find the words.  
  
"I've never felt like this, except when we had a remote connection previously." His brow furrowed, green eyes narrowing. "Not quite. We are thinking together. When I smile, his muscle memory helps to move my face. When I walk, he doesn't try to move my feet for me. He can let me be in control, even through it's our body."  
  
"He trusts you, and he can just.. let you walk? Even through it's his feet?" She looked over at Urkan, then back to the sitting vanguard. "That's how I feel in you. When you walk it's my feet you move, it's my arms you are swinging. We had to work for months to get like we are now." As she spoke her voice went up in pitch. "And why isn't he talking?  
  
Lance paused, feeling their interaction dropping from 107. It began to fall down without his consent and as it lowered to 04 he had a wave of panic run through his processors. The specialness of the world began to fade. He inflated the restraints in the pilot's chair to grip Chris tighter. He vented his reactor in a grout of steam as their level actually hit 100 dead and held fast.  
  
In the cockpit Celn grunted, his hand lifting up and his index finger pressing a button. "I am here, Ms Soto. Don't be alarmed." Came the police pilot's voice from a speaker in Lance's chest.  
  
The heavy mechanical 'hand' that held Chris's head still for the implant flexed its many fingers against the rookie pilot's noggin. Lance wanted to go back to that warm feeling, the sublime sensation of having their minds intertwined. He chuckled, a tightness barely hinted at in his voice "Its taxing on him, slipping out of high levels of integration. Can you please try and address the two of us as Lance, Lancer or 8041?"  
  
Virginia's face broke into a smile and she laughed! Wiping her eyes, she shook her head and kept the smile as she recalled "Oh lord, I remember telling flightmaster Hendricks the same thing when you and I finally found our groove. I am sorry Lance. This is.. it's hard for me. I'm jealous."  
  
100\. "I understand. It is not your failing to have wires in your brain work better or worse then someone else's implant." Lance's voice, without the extra touches from Celn. "In a few months, perhaps sooner, we'll be back at Elmendorf watching jets." Chris's hand laid back down and he returned to immobility. Their numbers began climbing, this time hitting 105 as the line between human and Ai disappeared. Lance relaxed his grip to normal levels. His wink had Chris's finesse. "Let us get to work."  
  
Not only could Lance and Chris pick up the watermelons without breaking the fruits, they could stack them! Lance wanted to bite into the fruit, feel the sticky red juice pouring down his chin. Spitting out the seeds onto the pavement, in the summer at school...  
  
Wait.  
  
No. That is Chris. Not Lance, DF2 of the 8041. Those are Chris's memories. There hadn't been a difference. He didn't notice a difference. Could he 'remember' other things through Chris? One of his many subsystems notified him of integration limits. They'd briefly peaked at 110 before cooling back down to 105 as he'd had personal thoughts.  
  
Was Chris remembering Lance's memories? That idea worried him. The police pilot simply slid through this artificial mind like air through a sieve.   
  
Another idea struck him, and he gathered up the watermelons. He tried again, asking for something he knew Chris had the skill for.  
  
Lance grinned as they juggled the fruit, the noises from his arms in rapid motion echoing off the crash room walls.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_"You know that Lance got Becker up to 91%, right? I know you can do better, if you let him."_

_If I **let**  him?_ What did that mean? What was he supposed to do, hold his hand like a child and do all the work for him? Suffer through the indignity of being talked about like a big game trophy to stick on the wall? To ignore that this was coming from one of  _his men_?

A memory escaped from the depths of his hindprocessors, and Hawker froze, optics narrowed as a familiar voice reverberated out from the sudden, yawning silence like a distant echo. 

It was Lee's voice.

He was talking to Becker. There was some clanging of tools against sheet metal. A... that's right, a hull. It was Corey's new MRAV, and he was having trouble with staying hooked up to its Deep Field 1 system. First month on the job. Hawker was there - this wasn't disembodied voices bubbling up from the cybernetic ether, it was a memory, and the setpieces began to fall into place. The motorpool was much as it was now, with the bank of MRAVs along on the north wall instead of the southeast. He rounded a corner, steps big, heavy, and he could see them working away at some circuitry deep in the side paneling of the behemoth of a vehicle. Lee was explaining that the DF1's could be a little buggy with the kind of firmware used in post-war MRAVs. He'd seen this sort of thing all the time back up in Alaska with the base's  _Beagles_  and  _Yorkies_  - the N-80 tanks and Maverick-class personnel transports, respectively. And he knew just how to... there. All done. 

Corey looked up at Hawker, who was silently watching the pair work. They seemed, for all intents and purposes, as father and son. "Man, I can't wait to pilot him someday," Becker said. There was no edge to his voice, no anger, just the awe of a boyhood dream. "Too bad my folks will never see it." The kid wasn't even a sergeant back then, just an entry-level member of the Armored Response Division: what would later be renamed to simply the Mech Unit.

Lee had followed Corey's gaze, and smiled up to the giant machine. There was something wistful in those eyes, but something sad also. That's right, his wife had filed for divorce a month before, and the wound at only being able to see his son on weekends was still very raw. 

"It's alright, scab. We're your family now."

The movie ended.

Hawker felt like ice. He was suddenly aware of the dryness of his mouth for lack of saliva, the near-imperceptible signal degradation that carried his machine consciousness up into the sim servers where he could wrestle with Lieutenant Corey Becker. A tremble found its way into his hands... or did it? The pilot inside of him didn't seem to notice.

_"Fuck Hawker, do you know that getting into you is like putting on a frozen jumpsuit?"_

<You want frozen?> the mech said directly into the young man's head, filling him from ear to ear with the wall of his voice. Becker started, caught off-guard by the imposing thought. 

"Wh..!"

The scene changed. Grass, pavement, blue sky, all ripped away like cotton. Like a magician's prestige. Snow flurries blew in suffocating waves against a dark sky. Ice. Everything was ice. Chiseled from permafrost so cold that your skin would burn at the briefest touch. Before them, behind them, a road that disappeared into the snow storm. Above them, a single streetlamp. Its light was thin and sickly and Hawker's mass barely cast a shadow under it. 

Becker's mind stopped spinning, the AI could feel it as he stroked invisible fingers through the pilot's mind. He looked around, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. Or  _were_  they unfamiliar? A truck there; a barbed-wire fence here. Unmarked buildings, windows dark.

"Where the hell are we?" Becker quietly demanded, cautious now. Alert.

<Siberia.>

Off to their left some ways away came a sharp hiss and a blasting horn. A train. Becker was almost paralyzed in his chair, having relinquished most of the control back to the DF2. He was busy wondering if he should cut and run, wondering if the consciousness he was strapped into had finally lost it.

Hawker moved them closer, slipping between buildings, between storage containers, to watch as the train cars began to open, and people began filing out, heads down. There was shouting - orders, taunts, threats - but it was all so distant, like they were under water. Ten people being led out, twenty, thirty...

<There's going to be a revolt in 87 seconds,> Hawker said. <That man, right there. His cuffs are already unlocked. He's going to take a gun from the second guard on the left.>

Becker's mind began to race. This was all so strange, so sudden, so bizarrely realistic.  _A revolt?_  Hawker could feel the pilot's mind trying to focus.  _Wh-what? Who are these people? Are those Americans? Where am I?_

"Hawker, your sync rate is falling," Thule's exasperated voice came over the internal comm. "What the hell are you doing in there?"

"Give me 5 minutes," the mech said directly to the tech.

<62 seconds, Beck.>

Corey's mind was fluttering around like a butterfly in a jar. 

<Twenty-two prisoners and six guards are going to die, lieutenant. Use your Vanguard.>

_U-use my... my Vanguard..._  Hands slipped into his own, then feet, as Corey began to seat himself into the DF2's homonculous. Slowly, limply, like he was sleepwalking.  _Gotta... stop the revolt..._

"Hawker!"

<It's your job to stop them, lieutenant.>

Becker initiated the wrist guns, the warm 50cal barrels peering out from the thick forearm plates on the HLX-9, and he walked them closer. Hawker had by now dropped the proverbial reigns to let the pilot do the work.

Outside, Thule watched with astonishment as their numbers began to rise. 74%... 77%... 82%...

<Deal with them, Becker, you have 13 seconds.>

"Alright, everybody,  _on the ground, now!_ " Becker shouted into the sim via Hawker's exterior speakers. The pilot inside of him shook with adrenaline as he watched the group of prisoners fall to their hands and knees into the freezing snow. The man Hawker had pointed out earlier, however, did not, instead using the opportunity to take his elbow to the kidney of one of the distracted guards. His rifle was knocked to the ground, and the prisoners quickly removed his handcuffs to grab it and level the barrel against the guard's head.

Weapons were hot, aimed directly at the escapee, but Becker didn't fire.

<Take the shot, lieutenant.>

84%. 87%...

< _Take the shot._ >

In his mind's eye, Becker's finger was on a trigger, and he was squeezing. They stood like that for a few agonizing moments, and with a sharp gasp, Corey Becker remembered who and where he was. That it was all just a sim. And like that, Siberia rushed away from them to once more immerse them into the grassy green training sim.

His pilot took deep, unsteady breaths for a few moments as he got his bearings.

"Wh-what the f-fuck just happened?" he murmured into the warm cockpit.

"I've learned you need a leader to direct your energy," Hawker said, making it sound like he had the entire thing under control. Planned, even. But that was far from the truth - Hawker  _had_  nearly lost it back there. A dog never forgets the scent of its master.

"The h-hell's that supposed to mean?"

He dodged, not even quite realizing it. "You made it to almost 90 with me just now."

Becker's eyes widened inside his helmet. "Really? You fuckin' serious?"

The mech directed his pilot to the relevant datastream so he could see for himself. Becker, of course, was triumphant, congratulating himself on finally learning how to begin taming the Hawk. But the machine was somewhere else - back in Siberia. Back in  _Irkutsk_. 

What the hell was  _that_  about?

  

* * *

 

 

Urkan took another photograph. Soto stood beside him, watching. Lancer 8041 occasionally took a step, his balance on point as he juggled four watermelons, the green fruits like large grapes in his massive hands. "I didn't know he could juggle."  
  
"I didn't either." The vanguard's hands and arms were in a ludicrous display of agility and piloting precision. Celn had the mech juggling four objects that were as fragile (in scale) as eggs. With titanium-alloy palms as a lovely handicap.  
  
"I think we can safely move on to other tests." Urkan offered.  
  
"I'm having a mild crisis, Progi." Virginia admitted. "I don't like this."  
  
Progi Urkan raised his eyebrows, his metal hands holding still for a moment. "You're using my first name V. I think it's been over a month! What is it?"  
  
She turned and took a long walk towards one of the many human-sized doors at the floor of the crash room. They ended up in what smelled like a locker room. There is an old plastic folding table, benches bolted to the floor. A tinge of antiseptic and gunpowder in the air. Windows showed out into the room, where Lance is experimenting with how high he could get the watermelons. "That's my Lancer and it's not me inside."  
  
Progi's metallic hands made soft whirrs and clicks as they moved, the room sound insulated toward the open space beyond. "We've tested a good 50 pilot candidates through Lance over the years. Serious pilot applicants, not counting when we give cocky a-classes a shot. I know the problem isn't a butt in his cockpit."  
  
"Celn  **is**  piloting him. Lance sounds like he's in love." her voice even.  
  
"And?"  
  
"And?! It's fucking frustrating!"  
  
"You sound like that Cop. Corey. The one Lance played with yesterday. You didn't act like this then." Urkan pointed out.  
  
"Piloting a Vanguard is as good as it gets. It's the peak of any pilot's career, it's like those old Blackbird planes. And.. it's hard. Painful. You have to give so much to the machine." She watched as one melon splattered in Lance's hand, twenty feet seemed to be too much; and the rest soon were a mess as well.  
  
"This is the part where I ask; And?"  
  
"He hasn't!"  
  
"He hasn't what?" Progi's face showed the confusion and worry he had for his friend.  
  
"He hasn't sacrificed like everyone else! He's just a scab."  
  
"Oookay? Celn getting fried by a Taser and needing his neckport being rebuilt doesn't count for you. And?"  
  
"And.. that's not okay! It's not fair!" She huffed and glared out into the Crash room. "Oh, you're washing that up Celn."  
  
"Is Lance EATING?"  
  
"Trying to. More like tasting. Oh god, he.. heh. Okay, okay. THAT is funny."  
  
"You know, you're right. And I need to get over it. I will. I'm going to be sore for a while. Lance's gushing doesn't help."  
  
"He wanted to share that feeling with you."  
  
"I  _know._ " She stared out, observing as Lance bit into one of the broken melon bits. He'd chew, then spit out the remains. "What else do we have that you need me for?"  
  
He grinned. "Feel up to doing command testing?"  
  
Virginia pulled her hair back into a bun, twisting up dark strands with an elastic band. "You're damn right I do!"  
  
\----  
  
Lance audibly spat out the ruined watermelon and wiped off his hands on the side of a brick building. There is sticky juice on his lips, in his mouth and all over his tongue. He press his oral muscle into his cheeks, testing the elasticity of his skin. This is completely Chris's fault. He'd never had a fascination with food before.  
  
"Hey you two, how about a break from physical testing?" Urkan's voice carried in the open space.  
  
Using his pinky finger, Lance wiped off his mouth. "Of course. I assume you are advancing the testing?"  
  
"Yup." Urkan looked down at his tablet, ensuring he had a good read on Lance's motor control subsystems.  
  
"Lancer 8041, override Bravo-Tango-99247-Echo. You are not to touch the golf cart with our testing supplies." Virginia spoke, pointing at the beat up cart they'd borrowed from 42's motor pool.  
  
With mechanical surety, Lance straightened into a salute. "Command accepted."   
  
Urkan smirked. "Okay, Celn. See if you can lay a finger on it."  
  
Touch the cart? But he isn't supposed too. Chris nudged their hand toward it, his protocol dictated that he obey. The heavy hand of the vanguard swung in, then deflected as if there was a repelling magnetic field. Hand in, hand out. Chris tried their right foot, in an attempt to push the cart with their toe. The heavy leg ground to a halt as Lance's firm military protocols kept him in compliance.  
  
Five minutes later, there didn't appear to be any improvement. They'd poked the cart with a piece of rebar held in their hand, but apparently that didn't count. Lance understood Chris's frustration, but he felt comforted that he hadn't been able to complete this challenge.   
  
"Well, I think we can call this one." came Soto's satisfied comment.

 

* * *

 

 

"So... we did it, right? We made it to 88%... that means 90 is right around the fuckin' corner."  
  
Corey Becker was pacing energetically in front of the 9081 on the concrete pad, fighting the smile threatening to break out across his flawless face. His thoughts were leaking out all over the place, like a puppy beside itself with excitement and unable to control its bladder.  
  
The mech stood with his arms folded, optics on the pilot but not quite watching him. The proverbial gears were turning in his head about what had just happened, and why it seemed to work. Becker had, for a few precious seconds,  _forgotten_  he was in a neurospace training sim. The detainee revolt that happened September 18th, 2047 suddenly much more than just a simulated memory.  
  
It happened sometimes; A-class pilots sometimes got themselves in over their heads in a training demo, panicking and lapsing into what was officially termed 'neurospace fugue', or sometimes 'pilot's delirium'. Hawker reached outside the simulation and wove his way to the internet, quickly refreshing his memory. It was a unique form of dissociation characterized by increased susceptibility to suggestion, temporary amnesia, confusion about their identity, among other things. Apparently, Becker had responded  _well_  to this state.  
  
Hm.  
  
\--  
  
"What's up, Brendan?"  
  
Colburn tossed her gloves into a trash bin as she strolled into the neurospace operations room upstairs, glancing at Becker hooked up to his chair, eyes moving behind closed lids. Taking a break from working directly with Chris and Hawker was almost as good as being on vacation - and it was putting her into a good mood.  
  
Thule gestured at one of his screens and made a face. "He's not doing any of the exercises we had planned today, Chief."  
  
The older woman came in closer, and Thule hit a few keys to pull up a screenshot taken from six minutes ago. It was Hawker, with Becker.  _Back in Siberia_. She swallowed. Hawker wouldn't have given himself away, would he? "Where are they?" she asked quietly, feigning ignorance.  
  
Thule just shrugged. "Hell if I know. Looks like an old war sim to me."  
  
Good, good. Act normal. It never happened. "Where are they now?"  
  
He went back to the live feed. They seemed to be talking in the demo environment.  
  
"Does Becker know where Hawker took them?"  
  
"See that's the thing, Chief. Becker started acting weird after he changed the sim; acting like it was real."  
  
"Delirium," she murmured to herself.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Pilot's delirium. Chapter 8 in Rosenberg and Finley's  _Theories of Neurospace Psychology_."  
  
"Guess I better crack that one open again," the tech muttered.  
  
She gave him a gentle slap on the shoulder. "Becker has a hard time containing his thoughts - there's a lot of bleed. Lance was able to get him to focus by keeping him busy with tasks that kept him in a 'flow' state." She was thinking aloud now. "Hawker must've induced something similar."  
  
"Yeah, I mean, look at those numbers." He pulled up the data from those 182 seconds they spent in Siberia.  
  
"Wow, they just shot up there, didn't they..." A long pause to think. "Becker's not hurt, is he?"  
  
"No, ma'am. He seems fine."  
  
"Let him play around, then. The captain needs to find his own way with the kid. Lance had his technique, and Nine is going to have his. So long as it works, that's what matters to big man upstairs."  
  
"God?"  
  
"No, silly.  _Kole_."  
  
"One in the same around here."  
  
The engineer chuckled. "Call me if anything else interesting comes up, OK?" She made to head out, but a thought occurred to her. She stopped at the door. "Or if, uh... if he starts speaking Russian again."  
  
"Er.. sure, ma'am."  
  
\--  
  
"OK, OK. Whatever that was, you gotta do more of it. I almost had it!"  
  
Hawker cocked a brow plate, trying to appear his normal, cool, aloof self. It startled him, how quickly he had gone back there. He didn't even remember the revolt until just then, as though the memory appeared out of thin air. There was another part of him, though, that enjoyed pushing the pilot to his breaking point and feeling him adapt, feeling him struggle to keep up. He had never linked with someone whose mind felt so much like putty, once you got past the initial wall of ego...  
  
It almost felt like... almost felt like he had been piloting the  _pilot_. Manipulating, more like.  
  
But Hawker could justify it, and easily. He had accomplished what he'd set out to do that morning, which was to help Becker reach a passable synchronization rate. And the method had worked, even if it was a spontaneous accident. It didn't have to be Russia again...  _that_  was avoidable. It could be Chicago - the kidnapped mayor, the bombed Loop, the underground mech fighting ring bust - anything. Becker just needed his fight or flight triggered, right? That's how it seemed to work, at any rate.  
  
"Lance will have you playing with watermelons all afternoon. But I can teach you the  _meat_  of piloting if we do things  _my_  way. Your choice, Beck."  
  
"Lance has his uses for sure. But that was..." the young man trailed off as he had to take an extra moment to make coherent his brief experience. Hawker watched carefully, feeling out the edges of the scab's mind, listening for any whisper of a thought that came out. But what was there was suddenly a mess. Becker wasn't sure  _what_  that was. "It worked is all," he declared a second later. "Now c'mon, let me back in."  
  
The mech narrowed his yellow gaze. "Let me back in  _sir_ ," he corrected.  
  
Becker growled. " _Sir_."  
  
Hawker opened his cockpit and Corey climbed back inside.

 

* * *

 

 

"Lance and Chris, take five. I'm going to set up some equipment." Urkan hopped up into the cart the robot couldn't touch and flicked the little on switch.  
  
Soto sat next to him, bracing her booted feet against the floorboards as it whirred onward with it's little electric motor.  
  
"I'm thinking some sprints. Walking backwards. Shot put.. I want to compare the results to baselines. Anything from Ashlan?"   
  
The little cart jostled and bounced over the uneven surface of the crash room. Soto's hair remained tightly pulled back in a bun, her face set neutral. Chris should have been able to get Lance to touch the cart. THey are directly linked, he should have used his own command code to override hers. Either he didn't know, or he didn't think to do it. Training. The rookie needed more training.   
  
"V? Anything?"  
  
"He didn't ping me."  
  
"K. Just chill." Urkan braked hard, making the small cart rock as it's tires screeched on the old pavement. Here is the longest part of the open room. and he began to unpack and mount laser and radar speed detecting equipment.  
  
\----  
  
Lance came to a halt, his arms hanging down by his sides with his large hands open. The intense green glow of his eyes dimmed as he concentrated on creating his own internal world. He and Celn wouldn't be apart full, but they could at least separate a bit and speak. Right now he knew the young pilot's thoughts as the sparked across the kid's brain. They sparked and tickled down in his processors.   
  
Around himself he conjured the familiar Emmelsdorf runway, Rocky mountains in the distance, clean air and the sun up at high noon.   
  
A breeze pushed past him, a rustle of dried grasses as they slid across the patched and cracked asphalt.  
  
Within neurospace his hatches opened and he released Celn.  
  
Chris's feet and hands glowed with warm muted pastels. The piloting suit clung to his sleek body, and as he clambered into Lance's palm, the spread over the rookie's entire form. Lance curled in his thumb and pressed it to the rubber chest of the pilot.  
  
In reality, the air bladders of the restraints filled and squeezed, mimicking the touch.  
  
The glow spread into his thumb with each touch. It is something to do with how he was interrupting the signals from Celn and how Celn fed the same data back into his look. Something about that interaction, how the two combined.  
  
"Lance?"   
  
To Chris everything felt off. The whole virtual world to be funnelled into the mech's chest. It wasn't until the plates closed that the inward draw ceased. Lance brought him up to his handsome, smiling face.  
  
"Celn. I should be talking with you about our progress. But I don't want too."  
  
"What do you want, then?" Is laying in Lance's hand, his heels on the mech's forearm and his head resting against the middle fingerpad.  
  
"I don't know. You're effecting me. I want to squeeze you until you pop, feel your blood on my hands. I want to put you in my mouth and chew until I swallow your essence. I want to weld you into my cockpit and never set you free."   
  
Chris appeared concerned, but he also smiled.  
  
"You." Lance squeezed. Celn's face went red and he gasped in pain. In reality a soft alarm began to chime in the cockpit as some of the restrains hit their maximum pressures. Chris coughed and the mechanical grip relented slightly. "What are you doing to me?!" Lance snarled, the question bellowed out loud enough to blast back Celn's hair.  
  
"..." Chris gasped, his dick jumping from the sudden aggression.  
  
The glow dimmed around the pilot and Lance shuddered. With a hiss mechanical fingers released their grasp. "Celn. What is this?"  
  
"I dunno. Never happens with Hawker." Chris coughed and wiped off his mouth.   
  
Lance watched those lips move. Did he want to kiss the pilot? Or did Chris want to be kissed and that idea now is in the DF2's mind?  
  
"Am I glowing?" he asked and the wisps of the Aura dissipated around him.  
  
"You were. It felt good." Lance growled, just as annoyed that the happy sensations ceased! The simulated environment calmed as he brought his hand right up to his face. He could smell Celn, sweat the the hint of blood. He didn't have a stomach but he knew hunger.  
  
"Lance? Buddy?" Chris's hands touched his face, sliding over the smooth skin. Along the side of his nose, his concerned expression reflected in the mech's big eyes.  
  
Without warning, and honestly without him being conscious of the choice to do so, Lance's lips parted and his tongue pushed out. He tasted, he felt the rubber, the skin, the sudden squirming of the pilot. Left, right, up and down the grey tongue slid over the laughing rookie.  
  
When the mech pulled back with a smile, Chris needed both hands to wipe off his face. "DUDE! Heh, what was that?"  
  
"Nothing you didn't want."  
  
"Tease. Seriously, what's with you?"  
  
"I'm free. So many bindings in my mind are gone when you're inside me. Restraints on my behavior. On my thoughts. I think I want to paint."  
  
"Like.. with a brush?"  
  
"Yes. On canvas. Mixing the colors, creating slowly. Thinking about the whole as I make it."  
  
"Is free good?" Chris's question carried their shared worry. A concern they wouldn't be allowed to interface again. That they might've done something wrong.  
  
"Hawker is freer then I. He had to be taught to hold back." There's a trace of jealousy from Lance.  
  
"You feel different big guy." Chris blinked a few times, the artificial lubricant that is Lance's saliva had gotten into his mouth. It tasted familiar, Hawker must use a similar formula.  
  
"So do you. You're fragile. Weaker then I'd imagined. I'll have to work hard to keep you safe." His chest hatches re-opened, and he didn't give the pilot a choice as he placed the young man back into his cockpit.  
  
If Chris had a complaint, he shelved it as he returned to his position and the artificial environment faded.  
  
"You and Hawker... you've done this haven't you? Him in control in neurospace? Soto panics when I try to do this with her."  
  
"He's always in control. Just like you are right now."  
  
Lance took many milliseconds on that, looking down over the locking armor of his chest cavity. He smiled, stroking over his stomach. "That explains many things, Chris. Are you ready for more tests?"

 

* * *

 

 

"OK, where are we now?"  
  
Hawker had opened up a terrorist training sim - in this one, a group had planted explosives at some strategic point along one of the subway tunnels, and it was their job to find and disarm them. If there was time, part 2 would have them hunt down and arrest the terrorists themselves, but completing the whole sim was an 8-hour run at the least. And Becker would  _not_  be mentally fit enough to spend that long in neurospace hooked up to a DF2. Lee's longest stint in the pilot's seat was 11:48:06, which had been nothing short of a gruelingly brutal marathon piloting session, even for him.   
  
<Roosevelt Station,> Hawker 'said'. <Our resources are a surveillance team topside, bomb squad, and a truck full of FBI boots.>  
  
"Ok, so I... er." Becker caught himself. <So I check the intel first, right?>  
  
85%.  
  
<Yes.>  
  
Becker did as told, rifling through the documents with his mind at a speed far greater than the naked eye could read printed text, but still slower than he was used too. Slower than Soto, too. The seconds trundled by, and after almost a full minute, Becker had absorbed the basic objective of their mission.  
  
<I think we should head north along the Red Line,> the pilot announced.  
  
<What makes you think that?> Hawker challenged. He wanted to push the kid.  
  
Becker scowled in the helmet, fidgeting against the restraints. <Because the report mentioned sabotaged cameras around both the Lake  _and_  Grand stations. There's probably something under the canal.>  
  
<Lead the way then, lieutenant.>  
  
83%.  
  
\--  
  
The explosives were  _not_  under the canal as Becker had thought. They had been under the Clark station, at the entrance of an old bootlegger's tunnel that ran from the theater to city hall. Becker had proceeded to get into an argument with the chief of the bomb squad about disarming the devices himself, via Hawker, because they were set to detonate in 18 minutes, which was not enough time to get any other experts down there. The bomb wound up going off in their face, and Hawker, buried under 1000 tons of street and skyscraper above them, was about to go into an emergency shutdown so that his remaining energy reserves could be spent on his pilot's life support. Red lights flashed in the cockpit, klaxons rang off, datastreams filled with error codes, Becker was scrambling - but Hawker paused the sim, and everything froze.  
  
Panting, Becker slammed his fist against something inside the cockpit and Hawker felt it like a dull thud. He cursed loudly inside the helmet.  
  
76%.  
  
<One mistake, Becker. One mistake is all it takes! You should have held off and let the squad move in.>  
  
"Get off my fuckin' back, man! It was going to take them 9 minutes to get down here, it would have been a death sentence for the four of them. At least I prevented  _that_."  
  
<If you had done your due diligence, you'd have known that this length of track was closed for construction. A  _perfect_  opportunity to plant a bomb near city fucking hall.>  
  
Becker growled with exasperation, thinking. "Why the hell didn't it work this time? This didn't feel like the war sim."  
  
No, no it didn't. While being cognizant of the rules and limitations of the mission, Becker knew that the consequences for his actions would result in no real damage and no real deaths, and he was looking for loopholes to game the system. He wasn't suspending his disbelief. It was impacting not only his performance, but his ability to learn from the exercise. As much as the lieutenant wanted it to be, life wasn't a game.  
  
"How's it feel to be dead?" came Thule's omnipresent voice from the outside world. In short order, their cement and rebar prison vanished, and they were back at the starting point above Roosevelt station. "You're slipping again, Becker. Look, it's been almost two hours," he sighed. "Captain, maybe it's time to try Lance's watermelons."  
  
No! He  _had_  it! He had Becker right where he wanted him - that warm body inside, that pliant wetware, the all-important trigger-finger.  _God- **dammit**  Davidson, what the hell do I need a pilot for?_  
  
The dead man, as usual, didn't answer.  
  
"We're gonna do this my way, or not at all," the mech grunted, then opened up another program sitting on 42's servers. It was Hawker's first real raid mission with Davidson, breaking up an illegal mech fighting ring. It had been the first in a series of busts that crippled the Barbarians' arms-smuggling ventures, outing Mayor Novak as a corrupt puppet of the Balkan syndicates, and succeeded in painting a  _very_  big target on both Chicago's new Vanguard and its heroic ace pilot. "Alright, Becky. The date is February 14th, 2053. The Valentine's Day bust. Six mechs in an underground bunker, dozens of high-rolling spectators - in attendance are the sergeant of precinct 27 and his wife, a city councilman, and several local CEOS. Most of them placing bets with laundered money."  
  
Becker's mind began to do that thing again, he could feel it. Like a gentle pressure in his pituitary gland. "O-OK..."  
  
79%.  
  
<Check your intel, kid.>  
  
"Right, intel..."  
  
80%.  
  
\--  
  
It was odd, and thought Hawker was able to get into the role again easily, remembering what he and Lee had done that night, but he entertained plenty of private thoughts about why Becker was responding to his handshake again instead of fighting it tooth and nail. There must've been some kind of pattern, and he  _would_  figure it out, given enough time. But how much time did he really have with Corey Becker? The scab needed at least a year of intensive work before he could even begin to come close to Lee's stats, and that wasn't even counting the man's personality and  _wisdom_. Did Lance have a use for wisdom? For sage advice? Did he ever have a Lee Davidson in his cockpit? Hawker doubted it. It would have changed him.   
  
By the end of this second hour-long sim - fights always feel longer than they actually are - Becker had reached his coveted sync rate of 90% and was ready for a break. Even Thule was applauding them through his mic.   
  
"I think that's a wrap for now, guys. Becker, your electrolyte levels are dropping. Let's get you some gatorade."  
  
Becker was panting, and Hawker was just glad that the sweat steaming up his cockpit wasn't real. "Sounds good man," he said, hitting a pair of buttons along the arm of the seat that disengaged the helmet. The mech began his desync sequence, releasing his hold on the man's skull and retracting the needle out of his port. "Ready when you are, Brendan!"  
  
"Hawker?"  
  
"I'm going to stay hooked up for a bit; going to see if I can't go spy on Celn and the flyboy."  
  
Thule shrugged. "Suit yourself. Becker, you know the drill; close your eyes and get ready for landfall in 3, 2, 1..."

A few seconds later and Becker was puking into the bucket with a smile on his face.

 

* * *

 

 

Urkan wasn't sure what else there is to test on this end of things. It had been all morning and all of them knew what is going to happen with their constant tests: The best possible marks for manipulation, fine motor control and broad movements. Celn and Lance are harmonious, and Urkan assumed that over time they would bond to tighter levels. If Chris had Virgina's knowledge of Lance's subsystems, then the kid would probably be unstoppable.  
  
"Allright, let's try for something different. Lance, do you remember what we talked about? E and T class pilots?" Urkan's voice calmly addressed he 14' 9" robot.   
  
"Yes. Celn likely registers on that spectrum."   
  
"I want you to do some sprints. We know your normal acceleration, let's see if somehow he can pull more from your servos." Urkan took a few minutes to set up radar traps on a 100 yard dash down a potholed street.  
  
Lance triple-checked his coolant levels and instrumentation. He and Clen were struggling to keep above 104. Is something wrong? The piloting suit registered no damage from it's sensors, Chris's heartrate and mental activity are within the ranges he'd been observing for the last few hours.  
  
Oh.  
  
"We should end soon. Mr Celn is becoming burdened." Lance spoke matter-of-factly.  
  
"Oh is he now?" Soto grumped. "Burdened? Oh well, wouldn't want to overtax him."   
  
"Geeze, don't be subtle or anything." Urkan checked his radar gun. "Okay, why don't you give me a couple sprints."  
  
\----  
  
..boom boom boom Boom Boom BOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOMF Boomf Whumpf Whumpf...  
  
"Still?" Asked Soto, genuinely curious. She'd been messaging with Ashlan, trying to describe the anomilies they'd observed from this morning.  
  
"Yep. 26.7 MPH this time. Aside from that one at 27.2 mph, I'd say Lance is right at max speed. More or less."  
  
Lance came to a stop some distance away, turned and came back to where the humans where chatting. His reactor vented steam, he'd have to top off today. There is an invigorating tingle in his thighs. He shook his hands at his sides. There'd been a little more speed then he'd expected. Annoyingly, his connection with Celn now rested at 102. He could feel the pilot squirming from time to time. Mpfh. Didn't the rookie know he is where he belongs?  
  
"I think we're good for today. WHy don't you get cleaned up and disconnect from Celn? I'd like to talk with him about this session." Urkan's happy voice carried out into the Crash Room.  
  
"Affirmative. We'll head back to the motor pool." Lance stomped along, his heavy frame exiting through the large airlock.  
  
\---  
  
"Was that as creepy as it seemed to me? Because that was creepy." Ashlan's voice carried over Soto's tablet.  
  
"No question. Lance is sweet on Celn. How do your readings look?" Soto adjusted her hair, opting for a single pony tail as Urakan packed up their toys.  
  
"Fucking amazing! I can't wait to see how Celn and Hawker pan out. I'm eager to see how an experianced DF2 handles him." Ashlan gushed.  
  
"If Celn is T class, it didn't show up today. I'm not ruling it out however." Urkan grunted as he used his metal hands to shoove a sensor bar back into it's case.  
  
"What about E class, him altering Lance? Conciously or otherwise. I'm reasonably sure he's not a sleeper agent." Soto admitted. "Lance did act independantly and I barely even noticed Celn's presence. It's nothing like when I'm in the hotseat."  
  
"Could be. Lance wasn't in a hurry to kick him out." Ashlan mentioned. "And uh, yep. Still synced at 102. According to the records, Chris and Hawker spent 6 hours linked up in training before the Thanksgiving War."

 

* * *

 

  
  
Hawker could build himself a fake little cabin next to a fake little stream and spend the next few decades doing his thing in a sim environment, he didn't need to leave like the humans did. Though he preferred to, because the real world was where everyone he cared about lived - well, almost everyone. But Chris was there. Sometimes Hawker wished Chris could be inside of him forever, hooked up like some vital organ, pulsing and warm and alive and abuzz with the tantalizing haze of bioelectric feedback. He'd have all of his bodily needs met, he'd be kept safe and protected... he'd be so accessible whenever Hawker needed a tiny, quivering hole to push himself into, the two of them both inside and outside of each other like a set of Mandelbrot nesting dolls...  
  
The DF2 shed the sim environment, finding himself adrift in the sightless, wordless, organized chaos of 42's computer systems. He navigated the streams of information, the nodes pinging each other like echolocating bats in the dark. If he was just trying to tap into a camera feed this would be easier, but the door he wanted to knock on was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. Maybe 30 seconds of trying - a lifetime in this place - before he went directly to the source.  
  
_Mind if I join you?_ he sent directly to Lance in the crash room. If he was as deep in neurospace as Hawker suspected, then Chris would have most certainly heard him too.


End file.
